Animorphs: The Title is too Long to Fit Here
by musicman88
Summary: DONE! It's time to take a trip into the AU, which usually means only one thing in the Animorphs universe, RACHEL LIVES! This is the story of what Rachel and Tobias' relationship might have been like after the war. And to top it all off, there's a song too
1. Chapter 1

Animorphs: Okay, The Song Definitely Doesn't Remain The Same This Time

Insert Normal Disclaimer Here

_Thought-speak in italics_

Note: Don't worry, I haven't died or been infested by a Yeerk or anything like that. There's a couple of reasons why it took me so long to get this story up, but I'll spare you the pain. The main thing is that it's done (well, done up until the song anyway). This was originally supposed to be a pretty short fic, but I ended up merging it with another idea I had so it started to grow. This is only the first part, but it's the part with the song. It deals with Rachel and Tobias' relationship after the war (if Rachel would've lived). The next part or two will deal with the aftermath of what happens in this part.

Speaking about the song, you can download it here: (savefile .com/files/1488605) Just be sure to take out the space (stupid formatting!). If you've read by past two song stories you'll know the drill, but if you haven't then just play the song when the lyrics come up and listen along. I want to give a very ultra-super special thanks to Toomin on RAF for helping me with the song. Without him, well, I guess it would've been possible, but it would've sounded a lot worse. And give me a break on the singing, I really don't have the voice for this sort of thing. I tried to make it as painless as possible though. There are a few harsh vocals, but it's probably nothing that most of you haven't heard before.

So, enough blabbering. On to the story! Enjoy!

* * *

My name is Tobias. I was sitting downstairs in my recording studio by the computer putting the finishing touches on my newest song. Like a lot of my songs this one was for Rachel, but I wasn't going to be able to just show it to her when she came home. Oh no, that'd take far too long. I wanted to get it to her now.

After a few final adjustments, I finally hit the save button and then clicked on export as audio file. I waited as my computer processed my request, and once it was done I could feel a small grin cross my face.

Hold on a minute, maybe I'm starting too suddenly. To understand what's really going on you'll need to what's happened over the past five years or so.

After the war was finally over me and Rachel started to spend more time together. Now that our relationship was out in the public eye we had no excuse not to. I always knew what she wanted me to do, and the thought was always on my mind, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it; not yet anyway. She wanted me to become human again.

For two more years I lived with her family in their new house (my mom ended up moving in with them as well). Everyone else seemed to get use to me real quick and her whole family made me feel right at home. I would've thought that having a strange hawk eating breakfast with the entire family at the same table might have freaked them all out a bit, but they grew surprisingly use to it quickly. But even though Rachel never said anything to me when we were in public, in private she always let me know that she wanted me to become fully human. I always told her that I would eventually, but I tried to avoid the topic as best as I could.

Over those two years Rachel and I, as well as the rest of the Animorphs, tried to continue our normal lives. Jake had the most problems getting back to reality, and who could blame him really, but all of us were eventually able to convince him to at least go back to school and start spending more time with Cassie. She was always worried about him and I thought for a bit that it wouldn't work out between them. But Jake started to come around eventually and it finally looked like everything was going to turn out fine.

Not just Jake but everyone, including me, went on to finish high school (after it was rebuilt of course). Since I was three grades behind everyone else I always had a lot of work to do, but sometimes it was a refreshing change from my peaceful hawk life.

Anyway, during Rachel's junior year in High School (and I was only a grade and a half behind at that time) we started to plan on leaving her house and getting one of our own. We had always remained very close, regardless of what Rachel thought about my hawk form, so it seemed natural that we'd live together once Rachel moved out. But I wasn't planning on just sharing a house with Rachel, I had something else planned.

I waited until both Rachel and I were eighteen (just to make sure that we weren't doing something illegal). She just happened to turn eighteen after me, so on her birthday I got her a special present.

I had gotten a huge box and wrapped a smaller box inside of it and another smaller one inside of that one and etc. It was my attempt at some humor, but even Rachel started to get angry after the fifth box or so. After asking if it was anything fragile she quickly morphed into her grizzly bear morph and began tearing through the remaining boxes. After it stopped snowing paper for a while she finally found what I wanted her to find. It was a small black box that she couldn't possible open as a bear. She quickly demorphed, but even before she opened it I could tell that she already knew what it was.

Her eyes went wide when she finally opened it and saw what was inside the box. And before I knew it she started running directly towards me. I wasn't expecting her to hit me so hard so I didn't really prepare, but she ended up knocking me off the stool I was sitting on and she landed on top of me on the floor. She quickly pulled me into a deep hug and even deeper kiss. When she finally loosened her grip on me a bit I could see tears start to form in her eyes.

"I'll take that as a yes?" I said, still trying to catch my breath.

"Of course I will," she said while gasping for breath as well, "Of course I'll marry you."

And a short six months after that our wedding day finally came. I let Rachel plan everything out; well, mostly. She was the one who wanted the perfect wedding and I didn't want to be the one to stand in her way. The ceremony wasn't really that important to me personally. I mean, sure, it'd be a great day and all that, but the real reward would be being able to spend the rest of my life with Rachel. And since the only thing I'd ever really wanted is for Rachel to be happy I was more than willing to let her plan everything like she wanted. Well, all except for that one little thing that took place at the very end.

We had just walked out of the doors of the church and were in the process of being showered with rice. The entire ceremony had gone perfectly and I couldn't keep myself from watching Rachel's eyes glow the entire time. Everyone we knew was there; from Jake, Cassie, Marco, and Ax to almost all of the Chee. It really was a very surreal time. I mean, I had dreamed about this moment almost since I first met Rachel, but now it was really happening. I couldn't really believe it and only later would I realize what had just happened. But we still had one more thing to do before we drove off to the airport to catch our honeymoon flight.

We wanted to keep it a secret from everybody except the people who really needed to know so we could make it the grand finale. I had let Rachel plan the entire wedding, but there was one thing I insisted we do. She didn't like the idea at first, in fact, she downright hated it. But as I continued to persist she finally agreed. The ceremony had been great up until now, but I had a feeling that this was going to be the best part, especially for me.

As we walked down the church steps and continued to get bombarded with rice both of us began to morph. My suit and Rachel's beautiful and expensive dress hid the changes well, so the only indication that we were morphing was the fact that we both began to shrink fairly rapidly. Eventually, all that anyone could see of us were small bumps under the layers of clothes.

_You ready Rach?_ I said as I finished my morph.  
_Let's do it!_ She said more enthusiastically than I thought she would. And with that we both fought our way out of our clothes and emerged almost simultaneously.

To the untrained eye it would've looked like we'd both morphed the same hawk, but the difference was quite apparent to me. I was in my normal hawk body while Rachel had acquired a female red-tailed hawk especially for this occasion. Once we were both free of our clothes we took off into the air together.

We got some decent altitude and I finally let my hawk brain do what it wanted to for so many years. I let it completely take over my body and just enjoyed myself as I started my aerobatics.

It was torturous every spring not being able to mate and having to watch every other bird out there do what I yearned to do. But I knew I could never have that experience. I was Rachel's boyfriend, and I'd never dream of cheating on her, even with a hawk. And it's not like I just sat idly by either. I had plenty of "offers" from a whole bunch of young female hawks. In fact, I often joked about it to Rachel. But I would never let myself do anything that stupid.

Once we got married I knew what was going to happen to me afterwards. But as much as I tried to push all my hawk thoughts and instincts out of my mind, I found that I just couldn't. They'd become part of my human brain by now. I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to get them out, so instead of fighting it I finally decided to give in to my urges.

Just because I forced myself not to do it before didn't mean that I didn't want to mate with another hawk. In reality, I did. Call it instinct, call it curiosity, call it whatever you want. I still wanted to at least try it. But after Rachel and I were officially married I knew I'd never get another chance. That's why I had insisted that we do something like this at the wedding.

We weren't _really_ going to mate of course, but I hoped that doing everything up until that point would finally give me some closure on the subject. And so far it seemed to be working. I was diving and twirling and doing all sorts of other stuff while my hawk brain couldn't have been happier. Rachel even started to get into it a bit and joined me in my aerobatics after a while. We both dove, climbed, and whirled in the air like any stunt pilot could've only dreamed of doing. I was having the best time of my life, but just like everything it had to come to an end eventually.

Rachel and I both signaled to each other and we began our final stunt. We climbed as high as we could before we separated a bit and flew off in opposite directions. Then, we both made a sharp U-turn and started heading straight for each other. With the flying experience only a bird would have, at the absolute last second we both did a 180 degree barrel roll and then pointed our beaks down towards the earth. As we began to plummet we grasped each other's talons in the ultimate show of trust. Down and down we plummeted; faster and faster. We could see the heads of all the people watching us grow larger and larger by the second, but both of us held on tight. It was only at the absolute last second that we both finally let go of one another and began to pull up.

We skimmed the heads of the crowd at well over a hundred miles per hour as we made a few laps around the church to kill off some speed; Rachel went one way and I went the other. Using the same almost subliminal signals as before we both finally decided to take one more lap and then aim for the door of the limo.

We were still perfectly matched in our speeds at this point so I flared my wings ever so slightly to kill off just a tiny bit of speed. We couldn't both make it through the door at the same time and I wanted Rachel to go in first. I'm not trying to say that Rachel's a bad flyer, it's just that I've had much more experience than she has in this morph. What I'm trying to say is that it'd be better if only one of us runs into the other door than both of us doing it…

I saw Rachel quickly take the lead and fly in before me as I begun to flare my wings. Like I had expected (being use to being a bigger bird) Rachel flared her wings a bit late and ended up bumping up against the other door while I calmly landed next to her. As the door closed and the limo started to pull away we both started to morph back to human.

There was a silence between us as we morphed since both of us were still high from the adrenaline rush. Rachel was the first one to break the silence after we were both almost completely human.

"That was INTENSE!" she cried out loudly.

"Was it ever!" I echoed just as loudly. Then, lowering my voice a bit, I said, "I love you Rachel," as I pulled her into a hug.

"I love you too Tobias," she said back and we exchanged a kiss. "Alright," she said once we were finished with our little moment, "let's get changed. We just came from a wedding, not some lazy day at the mall."

I let out a small laugh as I looked over to the pile of clothes that Rachel had put into the limo before the wedding. "That's my Rachel," I said and got a playful hit on the arm as she handed me my clothes.

We didn't have much time to waste in catching our flight, so we hopped out of the limo, took our pre-packed luggage from the trunk, and dashed to the airport terminal making it just in time. What was the rush you ask? Well, it was a long flight and we wanted to make it to Hawaii as soon as possible. We definitely had a few things planned, and we both wanted to get to them as quick as possible.

You see, I had promised Rachel that I would become a human nothlit for her once we were married, and I would. It's just that I was the one to pick Hawaii as our honeymoon location, and it wasn't just because it was beautiful either. Ever since I really began getting the hang of flying I was always on the look out for better thermals. It didn't take me long to figure out what I thought would make the best ones: lava. And what better place is there for lava than Hawaii?

I talked about it with Rachel and after a while she finally conceded. Me and her would spend one last day taking an all-day flight all across Hawaii and then that night I would become a nothlit for her while she promised never to morph again for me. That's why we were in such a hurry. We knew that by the time we got there it'd be too dark to fly, but we'd have time to get ready for the next day.

And so the long flight began. Rachel and I sat in each others arms for most of the plane ride, except when I had to morph and we both had to eat. The other passengers didn't seem to mind that a hawk was on the plane with them. In fact, after a few autographs they left us alone for the rest of the flight.

Once we landed it was indeed dark. We made it to our hotel and started to unpack for the long week we had ahead of us. Once we were done with that we began to check out the hotel and our surroundings. We took a walk along the beach and popped in to a few of the local shops and whatnot, but we couldn't stay out that long. We needed to be up as early as possible the next morning; at least I wanted to be. I had a feeling that tomorrow was going to be one of the best days of my life and I didn't want to waste one second of sunshine. Rachel was a bit less enthusiastic about it, but she eventually agreed that it was time to turn in for the night. The jet lag was starting to take its toll on both of us anyway.

When we made it up to our bedroom we both slipped into bed and started to, well, get a bit romantic. We um… well… we did what every newlywed couple does on their first night together and then we both started to drift off to sleep. I made it an issue to stay awake and human until I knew that Rachel had fallen asleep in my arms. Only then did I do what I really didn't want to do at that moment. I carefully separated myself from Rachel and quietly began to demorph.

To be quite honest, it sucked. I mean, to have to let go of Rachel like that just to demorph was almost painful. I could've stayed like that with her forever, and I almost did. But I remembered that we had plans for tomorrow and it was going to be a great day.

I still felt awfully selfish for making Rachel have to go through with this. She just wanted to have the normal life that I'd been promising for so long, but yet I kept dragging her into doing things like this because I didn't have the balls to finally give up on my hawk form. It wasn't until then that I had finally saw what Rachel had been saying all these years. I finally knew how it felt to have to sleep _next_ to someone and not _with_ them. I finally understood what she had been feeling, and I felt even worse now than I already did because of it. But, nevertheless, I still finished demorphing and found a comfortable spot on the pillow.

I settled down and tried to go to sleep. Maybe I had been a selfish bastard over the past few years, but tomorrow night I was finally going to show Rachel that I can change for her. I was going to prove it by becoming a nothlit, and now I was actually looking forward to it for the first time. But that would be tomorrow. For now, I needed to get some rest. I closed my eyes and began to drift off to sleep.

I was up early the next morning like usual. We had gone to sleep early so the sun was just barely starting to come up when I first opened my eyes. I took a look over at Rachel first and saw that she was still peacefully sleeping. I slowly started to get up and stretch out my hawk body before I started to morph to human again. Once I was fully human I gave Rachel a light kiss and made my way out of the bed. I walked down to the lobby of the hotel and eventually made my way outside.

It was still very early so there was no one in sight. Nevertheless, I found cover behind a few bushes (it was just a thing of habit by now) and I began to demorph. Once I was a hawk again I gave a few flaps of my wings and I was up above the rooftops.

I didn't want to spoil my flight with Rachel so I stuck close to the hotel. I just wanted to get somewhat of a bearing on where I was and where we should go first. And, besides that, I had just grown so use to taking a morning flight. Just as the sun was really starting to come out I decided to go back to my room; I had been flying long enough. I landed and morphed in the same spot I had before and made my way back into the hotel.

Once I got back into my room I decided to give room service a call. I probably ordered one of everything off the menu before I realized that my stomach probably couldn't hold everything I wanted to try. Even though I had been mostly human for more than two years now I still enjoyed the unique taste of food way too much. I wasn't as bad as Ax was anymore, but I could still get out of hand sometimes.

Anyway, after I hung up the phone I went back over to the bed. I carefully crawled back in and took Rachel in my arms. I just laid there and listened to both our hearts beat for awhile. I seemed to lose track of time after that since the next thing I really remember is hearing a knock at the door. I regretfully got back up out of bed and made my way over to get the food.

Once I rolled the cart (okay, all three carts) into the room I finally decided to wake Rachel up. I went back over to the bed and gave her a few kisses and a big hug.

"Mmh, ten more minutes," she said as I let out a small chuckle.

"But by then all the food will be cold," I said back. Her eyes finally opened to meet mine and we exchanged a few more kisses. It was only then that she looked over to see the carts full of food.

"You must be really hungry," Rachel said as she sat up and sleepily rolled out of bed.

"Yeah, I got a little carried away," I said to her as she walked into the bathroom. After a few minutes she came back out, looking as gorgeous as ever, and sat down on the edge of the bed next to me.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" she said calmly, "dig in!"  
I gave her another kiss and then literally lunged at the waiting carts.

I made it through about half of the stuff I ordered before my stomach couldn't take anymore. I looked over to Rachel who was calmly trying to eat some French toast (really good French toast by the way), but she was smiling way too much to get any in her mouth. She let out a small laugh as she saw me hit my limit and said, "You better not eat like that once you're human. You'll be humungous in no time!"

I let out a small, fake chuckle which really hurt my stomach. Right now, becoming human was the last thing on my mind and I really didn't feel 100 sure about doing it. But I brushed it aside as I started to demorph in order to get a bite to eat in my natural form.

I fluttered up to the edge of one of the carts and began munching on the small plate of assorted breakfast meats I had set out for myself. By the time my hawk form was full Rachel was done as well.

_You ready to go Rachel_? I said after a brief moment of silence between us.

"Yeah, I'm ready," she said back, "Let's do it!" If I was a human I would've smiled.

She re-covered all the plates of food and then made her way towards the window. It took her a minute to figure out how to open it, but she got it eventually. Then, all she had to do was pop the screen out and place it against the wall. She then walked over and flipped the lights on, so we could see inside the room when we got back, and only then did she start to morph. Before long there was a Bald Eagle sitting on the floor. She quickly unfolded her wings and started to fly towards the open window with me right behind her.

That day had to be one of the best days of my life. Everything about it was perfect. The weather was beautiful, I got to spend the entire day with Rachel, and oh yeah, I almost forgot, the thermals were AMAZING! I mean, I had some idea what a thermal from a lava field would be like, but it turned out to be way better than anything I could've imagined. It was almost like someone took hold of your wings and threw you up into the sky the moment you entered the thermal. In all my years of flying I had never felt anything like this. I'm not ashamed to say that when I felt the first thermal catch in my wings I giggled like a little schoolgirl. And if you think that's bad you should've heard Rachel's first time. With her gigantic Bald Eagle wings she got a boost that I could only imagine. It shot both of us up faster and higher than I think we'd ever been before. We eventually made it up so high that even my hawk eyes were having trouble seeing the ground. And there's only one thing to do when you get up that high; dive. And what a dive it was! Absolutely intense!

It wasn't even like the thermal was fixed on one small spot either. It was spread out across the entire lava field so we didn't have to keep circling to stay in the thermal. Everything was going way better than I ever would've imagined.

But the thermals were only one part of the day. We also had the breathtaking scenery to gaze at from the height we were flying at. Now, Southern California has some great scenery, don't get me wrong, but Hawaii beats it hands down. The mountains, the volcanoes, the sweeping forests; they just all seem to blend in so nicely. I wished that I could stay here forever.

Rachel and I even got really close to some of the volcanoes. And by close I mean really close. Like only a few feet away from bubbling hot molten rock more than a few times. Rachel even had a really close call. A bubble of lava decided to pop just as she made a pass next to a big puddle of it. It sent red hot liquid rock spraying in all directions, including directly at her. She managed to miss most of it though and came away with only a few singed feathers. But still, it was a lot closer than I would've liked.

The only time we both weren't flying was when Rachel either had to demorph or get something to eat. I kept circling overhead when she morphed, but when she went to eat I decided to get my own food. I knew that this would be the last time I'd ever get the chance to hunt like this again, and I was going to take advantage of it. Luckily for me the forests were swarming with tasty little critters so I didn't have to do a lot of work to get my reward. By the time Rachel came back from getting something to eat herself I was done eating as well.

I could've stayed out there forever, and I probably would've if Rachel hadn't said anything. But by the time the sun started to go down it was obvious that she was getting bored. But when the only light was coming from the moon, stars, and glowing lava she finally decided to say something about it.

_Tobias, it's getting too dark to fly_. I think we should start heading back.

I didn't want to stop flying, but I knew she was right. All good things have to come to an end eventually. I took one last dive before I said, _You're right, let's go_. And with that we started to make our way back to the hotel.

We had basically made one gigantic loop around the island we were on so we weren't that far away from our hotel to begin with. After a short few minutes of flying it began to come into view.

_I'll race you there_, I said as I began to pick up speed.

_You're on_! Rachel said as she tried in vain to catch up.

I was obviously the first one through the window and I made a quick loop around the room before perching on the back of a chair. I watched Rachel quickly come barreling through the window, making close to the same loop I did, before landing on the bed and starting to demorph.

I probably should've joined her there, but I was still having second thoughts about doing what I knew I had to do. So I just continued to stay perched on the back of the chair as I watched Rachel demorph.

"Phew," she said once she was fully human again, "what a day! I'm beat! How can you deal with morphing so much Tobias? You never seem to have a problem with it."

_I guess I just got use to it,_ I said in response._ That really was a great day though; one of the greatest of my life to be honest._

"Yeah," Rachel said back, "that was definitely awesome. I can't think of anything that would've been better for our last morphs."

_Yeah_, I said back weakly.

There was a moment of silence before Rachel started to stretch out and say, "Tobias, you don't mind if we call it a night early, do you? I mean, I don't think I could physically get off this bed again for another ten hours or so."

_No, I don't mind_, I said back.

And then there was a painfully long and awkward moment of silence that fell across the room. We both knew what was supposed to happen next, but yet I didn't move. I just stayed there on my perch looking over at Rachel.

I was scared, plain and simple. I didn't want to go back to being a human; I liked it as a hawk. There were too many things that I thought I couldn't deal with as a human anymore and it was making me reluctant to morph. I mean, why couldn't Rachel learn to live with me the way I am now? I could still be human almost all the time around her. Why did she want me to give up one of the only joys in my life? So I didn't have to waste a few minutes morphing every two hours? That didn't seem right. That didn't seem fair.

But then I remembered last night and what it felt like to have to morph before going to sleep. Was I going to have to endure that same feeling every night; having to separate myself from Rachel like that?

I knew what I needed to do, but I just couldn't do it. I guess that in a way I wanted Rachel to make the decision for me since I was continually staring at her. And if she ended up making the decision I already knew what it was going to be.

She seemed to sense my reluctance. After a few moments of silence she finally looked back over to me. She gave me a warm, comforting smile and patted the empty side of the bed next to her. That was all I needed.

Without giving myself a chance to think I opened up my wings for the last time and flew on over to the bed. Once I landed I instantly began to morph before I could stop myself. Before I knew it I was fully human. Rachel just leaned over and gave me a big kiss. I could see that she was starting to form a tear in her eye, but she gave everything she had not to break down and start crying. I returned her kiss and before I knew it I was lost in it; just the way I was hoping to be.

The kiss escalated from there until we started, um, doing what couples do on their honeymoon. After we were finished with that we gave each other a few last kisses and then we both started to drift off to sleep.

Well, at least Rachel started to drift off to sleep. It was only after we finished that I really began to think about what I was doing, much to my dismay. But I had already made the choice. I was human now and there was no way I could go back.

But what if I waited until Rachel was asleep? I could always demorph and spend the night as a hawk. She'd probably never know. I almost always woke up before she did so I could just remorph in the morning.

But that would never work. She'd eventually get suspicious of me having to go to the bathroom every two hours and she'd find out sooner or later. And when she did I might not like the consequences of lying to her like that. No, I had already made my decision and I was going to stick to it!

So I tried to calm down my erratic mind and do something I never really thought I'd do again; try and go to sleep as a human. I gave Rachel a big squeeze and let myself slowly drift off to sleep.

I woke up with quite a shock the next morning. I had spent five years of my life trying not to get caught as a human, and now I realized I was. My hands, my feet, my eyes, they all felt wrong. But as my mind slowly caught up with what my body was telling it I began to calm down a bit.

I had done it. I was now officially a human, and I wasn't sure how to feel about it exactly. Rachel would be happy no doubt, but would I be? My last memories of being fully human weren't so good. Would it be like that again? My uncertainty started to scare me.

But I took a deep breath and looked over to the person who was still locked in my arms. If anyone could make my human life better it would be her.

I quickly drove those thoughts out of my mind, but they were replaced by much more pressing ones; what do I do now?

Sure, I still knew what humans did when they first woke up, but to be honest I didn't really remember how to do them so much. Well, I guess I kind of remembered how to do them as well, but I really didn't know where to begin…

Let's just put it this way, I was confused. So, I did the only thing I was sure I knew how to do. I hugged Rachel tighter and enjoyed the feeling of her body against mine.

Eventually I could feel her stretch out a bit and begin to wake up. I gave her a squeeze to let her know that I was up as well and she eventually rolled over and looked me straight in the eyes. She was still a bit sleepy, but she managed to let out a small smile as I gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Sleep well?" I asked as she pulled away.

"Tobias," Rachel said back with a smile, "that was the best night of my life. Thank you so much." And with that she gave me another long kiss.

I didn't say anything back; I didn't need to. My actions spoke louder than words.

We continued to kiss/hug/wake up until Rachel finally pulled away and sleepily made her way to the bathroom. After a few minutes she came out and gave me a strange look.

"You look confused," she said with a small laugh, "do you still remember what humans do in the morning?"

"Um," I said, trying to be funny, "take a morning flight?"

She gave off another small laugh and said, "Do you still remember how to go to the bathroom at least?"

"Yeah," I said back feeling a bit embarrassed, "I think I can handle that."

"Well," Rachel said back sounding jokingly seductive, "get to it then. After you're done we can take a shower together and I'll remind you of anything you've forgotten."

"With an offer like that," I said back in a jokingly seductive tone of my own, "how could I refuse?" I quickly jumped out of bed and made my way to the bathroom.

After I was done I was just about to go and get Rachel when she made her way into the bathroom herself. It was a bit cliché, a couple taking a shower together after their "first night" on their honeymoon, but it really felt nice.

Afterwards we went through all the morning bathroom routines (I forgot there were so many!) We covered everything from brushing hair to cleaning ears, but the weirdest thing had to be brushing teeth. I had to have gagged almost half a dozen times or so trying to do it. I guess it didn't help that hawks didn't have teeth, but I just wasn't use to something like that poking around in my mouth.

After we were both clean it was time to get dressed. Rachel had brought me a whole new wardrobe before our wedding, so I actually got to put on a new pair of clothes for the first time in what seemed like forever. I took one last look at my old and worn pair of jeans and my old T-shirt that were lying on the floor next to the bed. I had grown attached to those clothes over the years (in order to morph any decent clothes you had to focus really hard on them specifically). They were just as much a part of my as my feet and hands were and it felt weird to be wearing something else. But I got over it soon enough when Rachel suggested that we go out and get breakfast.

We spent the remainder of the week doing, well, human stuff. Since we were in Hawaii we spent most of the time on the beach. We both had one hell of a tan before the week was over! And even though I had only just recently learned how to swim a little bit we took a few dips in the ocean as well. Water still wasn't my favorite thing in the world, but with Rachel there with me I'd do anything.

When we weren't on the beach we were doing the normal tourist thing. We took a few trips to visit the volcanoes (they didn't seem as cool from the ground really) and we went to a few louows and a Polynesian fire dancing festival and the whole shebang. All in all I had a great time and so did Rachel.

In a few days I was almost completely back to being my normal human self again as well. I hadn't expected to get use to it so quickly, but after about two or three days everything started to feel normal again. I was able to brush my teeth and do all that other stuff without really even thinking about it anymore. In a way it was sort of scary how quickly I had adjusted to human life and had (for the most part) basically forgotten about my hawk life. I still looked up to the sky every now and then and had a memory or two come back to me, but that was it.

I was sad when we had to get on the plane back to California. I knew that our honeymoon had to end eventually, but I was still reluctant to go. I had my final memories of being a hawk here, and now I was leaving them behind to go and face the real human world. I wasn't sure that I was ready.

Rachel and I talked a lot about it on the long flight home. When it came time to get off the plane I was feeling a lot better about everything. Rachel's mom had already taken care of most of the paperwork while we were gone (she is a lawyer after all), so I didn't have to worry about all that. And if I had any problems adjusting to anything I always had Rachel to help me. That was something I could always count on.

It was after midnight when we landed, so we quickly hailed a cab and made our way back to Rachel's house for the night. Because of the time-zone difference we were still fully awake when we made it there, but we forced ourselves to go to sleep. It was a Saturday night (well, Sunday morning now) and we both had school on Monday morning.

I guess it's a bit weird getting married while in high school, but everyone was a year behind anyway. Everyone lost a year of school while recovering from the Yeerk invasion (since they just so happened to blow up the school). And that wasn't the only weird thing our lives. At eighteen years old both Rachel and I were going to become homeowners in a week or two (we had decided on a house and they started building it before we left). After being a hawk for about five years you'd think that nothing would seem weird to me anymore, but it was the everyday weird things that truly seemed weird to me now. Weird, I know.

The next week was very busy for Rachel and me. On top of making up all the schoolwork that we had missed over our honeymoon we still had to go appliance shopping and furniture shopping and upholstery shopping and flooring shopping and who knows what else shopping. Needless to say, Rachel was in heaven. It didn't matter whether it was a new dress or a new washing machine, she still just loved to shop. And of course, she dragged me along with her. It wasn't as bad as it sounds though; I guess I kinda had fun too. It _was_ kind of exciting. I mean, we were going to be moving in to our new home soon. How many eighteen year olds have that experience?

So, after a week of almost endless shopping and schoolwork the house was finally finished. The next week was dedicated to moving in.

It turned out to be a really nice house once it was finished. I still thought that it was a bit big, but Rachel insisted that we get a big house so we didn't have to move or add on anything when we had kids. (Both Rachel and I wanted kids, but we agreed that it wasn't going to happen any time soon. We were still kids ourselves basically, so we'd have plenty of time for that kind of stuff later).

We decided to build our house out in the countryside so that we wouldn't get harassed by reporters every day, but it wasn't really in the middle of nowhere. Just by taking a short car ride we find anything we wanted. It really was the perfect place. Nice and peaceful when you wanted it to be and everything you could ever want was only a short trip away.

I left almost every detail to Rachel. She seemed to know exactly what went with what and what we would need in our new house. I just had one request. Rachel thought it would be a waste of money at first, but after I informed her of some of the things that she was buying she finally let me get it. I wanted my own recording studio.

I like to think that music has always been a big part of my life. Even when I didn't have anything I could play on I still loved to listen to it. And after the war was over I finally shared my secret with Rachel and showed her all the songs I'd written for her during the war. She hid it well, but I don't think she was too thrilled about my songs. Of course she said that they were sweet and all of that, but I felt some undertones in her voice that weren't so pleasant. But nevertheless I carried on with my musical career. It made me happy doing it and that was the only thing that mattered.

I quickly became curious about other instruments as well, not just the guitar. Sometimes I would just go down to the music store to try new things out. Keyboards, basses, heck, I even tried a violin once. But the instrument I had the most fun with was the drums. I seemed to be a natural at them ever since I first sat down and began to play. There was just something different about them from all the other musical instruments and I just loved it. I grew so fond of them that I ended up buying myself a kit, much to the dismay of Rachel and her family. But now I was able to put a whole new dimension to my songs. I didn't have to just stick with the acoustic guitar anymore, now I could do a full band arrangement.

When we began planning our own house, I told Rachel that I needed a recording studio in the basement. And reluctantly, she agreed.

But anyway, after another strenuous week of moving in, getting everything we'd bought delivered, and getting all our carpet and flooring installed we were ready to begin our lives together.

The next few years went by really quickly. Rachel was the first one to finish school, but after that she really didn't really have anything else planned. At first she just laid around the house, but I knew she couldn't stay like that for long. She quickly decided what she was going to do with her free time, get into some extreme sports.

I'm not talking about skateboarding or anything like that. It was more like bungee jumping and hang gliding. She had been doing that stuff ever since the war ended so she could get the adrenaline rush she needed to stay sane. But now she had all the time in the world to explore things that she never had time to try. She tried everything from sky diving to white water kayaking until she finally found something she really loved, rock climbing. To this day I don't see what she sees in it, but if she likes doing it then I'm not going to try and stop her.

Not only did she like it, she was really good at it. She was a natural. It started out simple enough; going down to the local gym and practicing on the rock wall. But it quickly started to escalate from there. Within a few months she started climbing at a few places close by and a few months after that she was taking trips to Yellowstone with her rock climbing friends just to climb something new and interesting. I tried to tag along for a few of the early trips but rock climbing just wasn't my thing. I ended up slowing everybody down and they were always waiting for me at the top (if I even made it up that is). So I eventually decided not to bother them anymore and I just stayed home.

Within a year Rachel had all sorts of certification and not too long after that she finally got her first job; giving rock climbing lessons at the local gym. She still works there as an instructor every now and then, but she's gone on to becoming a real rock climbing instructor. She even takes trips all over the world to climb different types of rocks.

Early on it was hard to see Rachel leave for just a weekend trip without me, but now the trips can take as long as two weeks or sometimes even more. But I finally ended up getting her a durable laptop with a satellite internet connection so we could keep in contact with each other while she was gone. Ever since then it's made being separated from her a bit more tolerable.

As for me, I ended up passing high school a little less than a year after Rachel. Now, I wouldn't say that I liked school per say, but I was always a bit of a nerd and I liked to learn new stuff all the time. That's why I decided to go on to college. For what you ask? Well, I thought it'd be obvious; ornithology.

I began to take classes at the local college and before I knew it I had a degree. So, I did what any normal person would do and went back to get a better one. I've already gotten my Associates and Bachelors degrees and I'm currently working on my Masters now.

When I'm not busy studying I like to relax by working towards getting my civilian pilot's license. Flying an airplane is almost nothing like flying as a bird, but it's the closest thing I could come up with as a human.

As you probably can tell I do miss being a hawk every now and then; especially when Rachel is gone for a long time. Soaring up in the clouds, riding the thermals, talking a hundred mile per hour dive straight at the ground; there was nothing else like it. But I loved my human life too. And I'd put my human life before my hawk life any day. Well, sometimes I do see it the other way and today was a good example of that.

The relationship Rachel and I shared had always seemed good. The excitement had begun to die down a bit after almost five years of being married of course, (I like to think that we "normalized" a bit), but we still seemed to love each other very much. We had our small little fights and whatnot, but we always quickly forgave one another and made up shortly afterwards. We both still slept together in the same bed when Rachel was home and every morning we'd give each other a morning kiss when one of us woke up. It seemed like everything was going fine and that we were both as happy as could be. Then one day I came home from my classes to see a note. Well, maybe I should let the song explain…

I opened up my e-mail inbox and typed Rachel's e-mail address into a blank e-mail template. But as I finished typing the address I decided to playback my song one last time before attaching it; just to see if everything sounded like I wanted it to. I minimized my inbox and double clicked on the audio file sitting on my desktop. My media player came up and the song started to play.

**_We had out problems babe, but so has every other couple.  
I thought it'd last forever, and we'd always be together,  
But that all changed the day that I came home to see your final  
note that you had wrote and it said quote that I can't take this anymore…_**

**_You stupid no good two-bit (censored)…  
I gave up everything for you…  
And look at what you put me through…  
I can't believe you left me here…  
Drowning in my mournful tears…  
You've brought to life my deepest fears…  
You put our love up on a shelf,  
How could you live with yourself?_**

**_I thought it was a joke and you were just trying to be funny.  
I waited here for you, nothing else I'd rather do.  
But when you didn't show I wondered what was going on in your  
head everything you said filled me full of dread the way that nothing ever had before…_**

**_You stupid no good two-bit (censored)…  
I gave up everything for you…  
And look at what you put me through…  
I can't believe you left me here…  
Drowning in my mournful tears…  
You've brought to life my deepest fears…  
You put our love up on a shelf,  
How could you live with yourself?_**

**_Now that it's over I can really see what you've become and,  
All the things that you could do, like I meant nothing to you.  
If this is how you want it go ahead and run away you (censored) you (censored) witch I didn't fit your niche,  
Was I really that much of a bore…_**

**_You stupid no good two-bit (censored)…  
I gave up everything for you…  
Look at what you put me through…  
I can't believe you left me here…  
Drowning in all my mournful tears…  
You've brought to life my deepest fears…  
You put our love up on a shelf,  
How could you live with yourself?_**

**_How could you live with yourself?_**

**_How could you live with yourself?_**

Well, it wasn't perfect, but for a few hours work it wasn't half bad. I just wish I had a better voice for these types of songs but you've got to work with what you've got sometimes. I went back to my inbox and typed in the subject: _Hey honey, I made another song for you! :-)_ Then I attached the song to the email as I thought about what I was going to say in the body of the letter. I decided to just let it flow and to see what came out.

_Hey Rach, hope you're having a good time climbing whatever you're climbing. I've been thinking a lot about you for the past few days and I became inspired to write you another song. I know that you're not the biggest fan of the songs I've made for you, but this one is a bit different. I hope you like it! I can't wait to see you when you finally get back. I'll be thinking about you all the time until then! Be careful and don't do anything crazy! I didn't become a nothlit for you so that I could go to your funeral…_

_Your Husband,  
Tobias Fangor_

Well, I thought to myself as I read what I had wrote, that seems good enough. I'll let the song do most of the talking. With another small grin I check everything over to make sure there'd be no mistakes and I clicked the send button.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

It's been a week since I sent out that message, and I was regretting it every day now. I knew better than to act on my impulse and tell Rachel what I felt like then. I knew I needed to make the song to help calm myself down, but I didn't need to send it to her. What would she think of me now? Would that song only confirm what she already thought of me? That might have been the way I felt just after I realized what she did, but that's not the way I felt now at all.

My mood was very complex, but I'll try my best to explain it. There was a bit of pure sadness of course, but mixed in with that was some confusion, doubt in myself and her for various things, and some residual anger that I just couldn't let go of. But by far my most profound feeling was that of emptiness. I felt empty without her. She was the biggest part of my life and all of a sudden she was just gone. I didn't even have time to fill that gap with anything else. She just left so suddenly that it shocked my body into remaining that way, and there was nothing I could do to change it.

For almost the entire week I've been feeling this way. It's almost like nothing else mattered in my life. I didn't have any desire to go anywhere or do anything. I hadn't gone to any of my classes this week and I skipped out on my flight lesson as well. I just spent all my time moping around the house; gazing off into space and trying to lose myself.

I wanted to send an apology e-mail to her ever since I sent the original e-mail, but I figured that I'd just make things worse by doing that. I'm not that great with words anyway so it'd probably be a disaster no matter what I tried to say. I needed her to make the first move so I at least had something to respond to. I needed something to work off of instead of just blabbering off about anything.

And to make it even worse I still didn't know why she left me. I've checked my e-mail and our video streaming channel religiously for the past week, but there was never any response from Rachel. All I had to go on was the very short letter that she had left, and that barely said anything other than "I'm leaving you". I couldn't believe that she hid her true feelings from me for so long so well. I mean, I never saw anything like this coming at all. Up until the morning I left for school she seemed normal; like she had been for the past few years. We gave each other our usual morning kiss when we got up and she even made me breakfast that morning. As I walked out the door I would've never guessed that I would never see her again. I'm not sure if I was just blind to it or Rachel was that good of an actor, but she had been hiding something that I had never noticed.

Looking back on things has a funny way of distorting events to make them seem like you want them to. Looking back I could come up with a host of signs that things were going the wrong way between us. Looking back I should've done something; perhaps talked to Rachel about a few things. But I knew that in reality I never noticed that anything was wrong. I knew that in reality that I would've never thought that Rachel would be capable of something like this. But nevertheless my thoughts continued to hound me. What if…? What if…?

As I began to enter the second week since I had sent the letter I really began to lose it. I had been content to just stare of into space before, but I think that everything only really hit me fully after I had some time to think about it. I had lost just about everything that mattered to me in my life, and now it seemed like there was nothing left. I felt a lot like I did when I first got trapped as a hawk. It wouldn't be unusual to find me crying on the couch. I even slept there because I couldn't deal with having an empty spot next to me in my bed. But little did I know my mood was about to change.

One day in the early afternoon I heard the doorbell ring. I wasn't expecting anyone to visit so I was in no hurry to open the door. It was probably just some Church group or some girl scouts selling cookies or something. I wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone anyway. I figured that whoever they were they'd leave eventually if no one answered. But after about the twentieth ring it finally began to annoy me to the point that I had to answer it. I got up off the couch, not even bothering to make myself look presentable, and made my way towards the door. What I saw there would completely shock me.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

NOTE: You didn't think I'd write a story like this without giving Rachel's POV now did you? Well, here it is. (Well, part of it anyway).

* * *

Rachel

My name is Rachel, and I was a mess. My hair was a tangled knot, my horrible looking clothes were all ripped and torn, and to top it all off my whole body felt like it was covered with a layer of filth. But for the first time in my life, I didn't care.

I had screwed up. Really bad. And as I stood on the doorstep of my own home I was almost shaking with fear. Imagine that! Fearless Xena being scared about seeing the person she's loved all these years? No way! But it was true. I was more scared now than I had been in a long time. Why you ask? Well, it all started about six months ago.

If you haven't been keeping up to date with what's happened in my life after the war was over then I'll give you a quick recap. About two years after the war ended Tobias finally asked me to marry him. I said yes of course and after the ceremony and our honey moon we moved into a brand new house of our own.

After I had finished up with high school I suddenly had all this free time. I ended up trying out some things I had always wanted to, but never had the time to before; mostly extreme sports.

I finally got around to trying everything from sky diving to white water rafting, but there was one sport that I fell in love with the moment I tried it; rock climbing.

To this day I still don't know why I like it so much. It's got to have something to do with its unique rush though. As my teenage years ended and my twenties began I saw a shift in what I found exciting. Sure, the bungee jumping and stuff like that was still fun and still gave me a rush, but it was always too brief and too intense. I guess the best way to put it was that my tastes began to mature a bit. I was no longer looking for that quick thirty-second burst of adrenaline. I needed something with a lower intensity but a longer duration. And rock climbing just fit that description perfectly.

It wasn't just that I liked it either. I seemed to be a natural at it. Within a few years I had all sorts of certification and was taking trips around the world just to climb different rocks. That's where I first met Kyle…

From the moment I first saw him I knew I was going to like him, and as I got to know him a bit better we became very good friends. He reminded me so much of Tobias that it wasn't even funny (except for the not sucking at rock climbing part). But he was free of the one thing that I absolutely couldn't stand about Tobias anymore, guilt.

Ever since Tobias got his morphing power back there was only one thing I wanted him to do; become a nothlit. I knew that he couldn't during the war, but that didn't mean that I couldn't want him to. And even after the war he still didn't want to give it up. He was happy as a hawk, but to be honest I wasn't. After all the weirdness in my life I wanted something normal; something that everyone else on earth could have without even thinking about it. I wanted to be able to lay with him at night and run my fingers through his hair. I wanted to feel that sense of security knowing that someone else was there if I needed them. And having a hawk lay down next to you during the night just wasn't the same thing as having a human there.

For the first few years I didn't think Tobias missed being a hawk much. I thought that he'd come to accept that he's really a human inside and he belongs as a human. Whenever I asked him about it he said that he was over it and he was happy to be a human now. I believed him for a while, but I started to grow suspicious when he started to go for his Ornithology degree. But it was when he started taking flying lessons that I knew he had to miss being a hawk.

I ask him about it from time to time and he always says the same thing; that he's glad he's a human. But I just couldn't believe that with all the evidence to the contrary floating around. And to top it all off he was trying to lie to me about it.

It didn't bother me much at first, but eventually it became unbearable. I couldn't even look at him without feeling guilty anymore. It was my fault that he was like this. I forced him to do something that he really didn't want to do. And now, there's no going back. He can never go back to being a hawk, which means that for the rest of his life he's going to have the feeling that maybe he shouldn't have become a nothlit. And it was all my fault.

Around the same time that my guilt was becoming unbearable I first met Kyle. Under normal circumstances we wouldn't have been more than friends probably, but these weren't normal circumstances. I was trying as hard as I could to hide what I felt from Tobias. I didn't want him to worry about me or maybe even feel worse than he already did. It took a lot out of me to keep everything normal between us, and I would've gone insane if it wasn't for Kyle.

He was someone I could talk to. Someone who I could share my deepest secrets with and never feel ashamed. I told him all about my problem with Tobias and he was always there to comfort me. He was, well, a lot like Tobias. Except he wasn't. I felt like I could talk to him about all the non-normal things going on in my life and he'd understand. He knew what I was going through and he tried his best to help me get through it. He was a lot like Tobias in that respect, but yet he didn't seem like him all that much. I…I… I don't know. I can't explain it, but Kyle was like Tobias to me without have to feel guilty every time I looked at him.

We started out just being friends. He was someone I could talk with about rock climbing and everything else while we were physically climbing a rock. But it eventually started to grow into more than that.

When we took a trip somewhere we would always share a room. Money wasn't that big of a problem for me (since I had gotten more than enough money for saving the world and all that) but Kyle wasn't exactly Richie Rich. Whenever possible I shared a room with him so he wouldn't have to pay for it. And sometimes we could only get a very small room (depending on where we went) so sometimes there was only one bed…

I know it sounds weird, but it was almost like Kyle and Tobias switched places. I still loved Tobias very much, but Kyle filled in all the gaps that Tobias couldn't. And every time I looked at Tobias I wasn't reminded of how much I felt sorry for him. I couldn't help myself; I began to fall in love with Kyle.

And our relationship just kept growing from there. Right now I'm down-right ashamed of how far it got, but back then it just seemed like something we should do together. And while mine and Kyle's relationship grew stronger, Tobias' and mine grew weaker. It took more and more effort to keep hiding how I felt from Tobias, and eventually I just couldn't take it anymore. I had to have some time away from him.

I knew that I had a big two-week rock climbing trip coming up, but that wasn't going to be enough. I've been on trips that long before and it was never enough. I wasn't sure how much time I really needed, or if I ever would even want to come back to Tobias, but I needed some time without him to think about how to fix our problems.

But I didn't have the heart to tell him to his face. I just couldn't do it. I wanted to be open and honest with him, but he wasn't being open and honest with me so it was a bit tough. I decided that there was only one way I could do this. When I left for my rock climbing trip I would also leave Tobias. I'd take everything I could fit in my car with me and drive off to Kyle's place to move in with him. That way, it wouldn't seem strange that I was packing since I was going on a trip and Tobias wouldn't be expecting me home for a few weeks anyway. It wasn't the greatest plan ever, but it was the best I could come up with.

So when that day finally came and Tobias kissed me goodbye (he was off to college for the day) I let out an internal sigh of relief. I felt bad about doing this to Tobias, but I knew it had to be done. It was the only way we could save our marriage; if it was even savable at all.

As soon as I saw his car pull away and disappear from sight I began taking anything I wanted to keep and began filling up my car. After there was almost no more room for me to sit I was ready to go. I got in the car and went to turn the key, but something stopped me.

I couldn't just leave like this. Tobias had a right to know what was going on. Even if I didn't tell him to his face I had to let him know. He'd begin to get suspicious when he saw that everything of mine was gone, but he might not put it all together until I didn't come home. I wanted him to have the time without me he already knew he'd have to come to terms and get use to me not being there.

So I got out of my car and went back into the house. Sitting on the kitchen counter I saw a pad of paper, so I quickly found a pencil and began to write.

_Tobias,_

_I just can't take this anymore. We need some time apart. And besides, I've begun seeing someone else. I've already taken most of my things and I won't be coming back after my trip is over. I'm sorry it had to work out like this._

_ -Rachel_

It was a pretty crappy farewell note, but it was all I could come up with on such short notice. I placed the pencil down by the pad and made my way back to the car.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

NOTE: Kind of a short one, but it sets everything up for the next major plot point.

* * *

The trip to Kyle's house was sort of long (about four hours by car), but to my surprise I didn't think about Tobias much. I mean, I hated having to do this to him and I knew I should've felt worse than I did, but it just wasn't on my mind. I might have been trying to hide my emotions from myself subconsciously so I didn't have to think about it, but nevertheless it felt weird not to feel worse. But I had a rock climbing trip coming up and I had brought along all my favorite CD's to listen to, so I guess my mind was too preoccupied with other things to feel bad.

I was relieved when I finally pulled into Kyle's driveway. My legs were killing me from having to sit so long and I needed to get out and stretch.

Kyle was waiting for me on his deck and he hurried down to give me a kiss as I stepped out of the car.

"You went through with it?" he asked, but he already knew the answer.

"Yeah," I said back, "I had to. Now help me unpack. I'm running a bit late."

So after moving what felt like tons of junk into Kyle's small apartment we were finally ready to leave for the airport. I packed my rock climbing gear into his car (since I didn't really want to drive anymore) and we both started our trip to the airport.

It was about a two hour trip to the airport where we met up with the rest of our climbing crew. We quickly boarded the plane (since Kyle and I were running a little bit late) and settled in for a long trip.

After taking off we made layovers in Mexico City and Costa Rica before finally landing in Brazil, our destination country. From there we took a local flight to a smaller airport where we had to spend the night in a really crappy hotel. The next morning we took an even smaller flight to an even smaller airport before taking an even smaller flight to an even smaller airport. And we still weren't done. At that small airport (which was really just a single runway and a control tower) all eight of us boarded a rickety-looking single engine plane to get to our final destination. We somehow managed to cram all eight of us in there with all our gear and a few extra supplies (the same plane had flown in supplies the day before, but a little extra couldn't hurt). By the time our final dirt runway came into view I was ready to get off my ass and start doing some climbing. But first, we had to hike a few miles to our base camp.

When it came into view it looked so cozy and picturesque. In a small clearing near the foot of a few steep mountains there were four, well, I really couldn't call them houses. Cabins probably would be the better description. They seemed big enough from far away, but as we got closer they began to shrink. And once we were standing beside them they looked almost too small to live in.

A look inside confirmed how small it was. There was a tiny bathroom with a sink, toilet, and a showerhead with a drain in the floor. The bedroom was just that, filled with what had to be a single bed that was supposed to be shared by two people. The door had to slide into the wall since there was no room to open it otherwise. There was also a tiny kitchen (more like a food storage area with a pot or two thrown in) and a small "living room" I guess you could say. We had to build a fire outside to cook our food since there weren't any appliances. The only things that used electricity were the sinks, toilets, and showers (driven by a large water pump outside) and the single light we had in the middle of the cabin (powered by the same noisy generator that powered the water pump).

But we didn't come here for the accommodations; we came here for the rocks. It was too late in the day to start climbing now, but we all got settled in and prepared for tomorrow. Obviously Kyle and I chose to stay in the same cabin so once we had everything laid out for tomorrow we decided to turn in for the night. We'd need all the energy we could get for the next two weeks.

The next few days were awesome. Great weather, tough and challenging but rewarding rock climbing, and above all I had Kyle. Little did I know that all these good times weren't meant to last.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

I woke up one morning to the sound of voices talking in the other room. I didn't feel Kyle beside me in the bed, so he must've been up and talking with some of the other members in our group. It wasn't that unusual though. I always was a late sleeper and was usually the last one to wake up anyway. The fact that Kyle was talking to other people wasn't all that strange either since the mornings were kind of slow here while everyone waited for me to wake up. They usually didn't talk inside while I was still sleeping, but maybe they had started to get impatient with me or something.

I was in that phase of sleep where I was definitely awake, but I didn't feel like moving or opening my eyes. So I just laid there for a bit and listened to their conversation.

It started out about normal everyday stuff, but suddenly the topic changed to something else, me.

"Go in there and tell your girlfriend to wake up," I heard someone say.

"She's not my girlfriend," I heard Kyle say. (We decided to keep our relationship a secret from everyone else, at least for now. If the media got a hold of this story they'd have a field day).

"Oh, come on," the same person said again, "don't try and pull that on me. You've been in the same room with her every chance you got. Don't tell me that you never got any from her."

My mind wasn't awake enough to fully comprehend what he was asking, but Kyle's answer helped me wake up a bit.

"Well," he said drawing it out, "maybe a few times."

That shot me wide awake in a second. How could he tell someone something like that? That was supposed to be a secret we kept between us. I could only imagine what would happen if everyone else started to find out.

"Aw, man!" the other guy said, "I wonder what Tobias would say to that!"

"I'm not supposed to tell you this," Kyle said as he lowered his voice a bit, "but Rachel broke up with Tobias a few days ago. She's decided to be with me instead."

I shot up in bed. How dare he tell them that! I was about to go out and give him a piece of my mind, but the next few lines made me reconsider. I was going to do something way worse.

I heard a slap on the table and someone saying, "You're shitting us! No way! I don't believe it!"

"You can ask her yourselves when she gets out here," Kyle responded back like it was no big deal.

There was a short pause before someone said, "So, are you planning on marrying her or something then?"

"Me, no way!" Kyle said as if it were an insult. "I was just going to play around with her a bit. When I get tired of her we'll break up. I'll just give some stupid reason like I do with everyone else I've been with and she'll never know what was truly going on. I've done it to plenty of girls and it almost always works."

There were no words to describe how angry I was. My fists and teeth were clenched as I did something I promised never to do again. I felt the changes coming and I could've stopped them. I should've stopped them. But I didn't want to stop them. At that moment all I could think about was what I was going to do to Kyle.

He had played me like a deck of cards. He knew exactly what moves to make and I fell for all of them head over feet. He had flat out lied to me for well over two years and now I was going to get my revenge. He should've known not to mess with me, and now I was going to show him why.

I crept quietly out of the bedroom and into the small hallway while I felt some hairs beginning to spring out of my face. It was beginning to become a tight fit, but I had squeezed into smaller places before. I gave a peak around the corner to see Kyle along with Dave and Mike (two brothers in our group) laughing around the living room table. Kyle's back was towards me while both the brothers were facing me. I didn't care much about the brothers right then, I just wanted Kyle. They'd see me first, so I'm sure they'd be able to make it out the way. Or, at least they'd be able to brace themselves better. I waited until my changes were almost complete before I made my move.

With a silence only a half ton grizzly bear could produce I quickly gave a good push from my hind legs and started my charge. Dave and Mike saw me almost immediately as they quickly scrambled out of the way. Kyle wasn't so lucky.

It only took me another step or so to reach him. By that time all he had managed to do was to turn his upper body around to get a look at me. I guess he was kind of lucky for doing that since I squarely connected one of my front paws with his chest (cushioned by his ribcage) instead of his back (cushioned by, well, not much). My paw had enough force to lift him up off his chair and spin the rest of his body around to match his torso. Once he was up in the air my momentum carried him into the center of the table where gravity finally caught up with the both of us. To help speed along the process of falling I put some extra force into my paw just to be sure that he'd make it through the table and onto the ground. And that's exactly what happened.

The whole cabin shook as both of our bodies hit the floor. I had managed to keep my paw in contact with him the entire time and now I had him pinned down to the ground. I had clearly knocked the wind out of him since he was frantically gasping for breath. And I'm sure the pressure I was putting on his lungs wasn't helping either. But he deserved it. Every painstaking second.

I didn't wait for him to catch his breath again. Once we were both lying solidly on the floor I shifted my position, keeping pressure on his chest at all times, until my muzzle was only inches away from his own face. His face turned pale white and his eyes opened wide as I started to lean in even closer. I let out a very long and menacing growl as I started to "talk" to him.

I said a lot of things that no one should ever repeat for any reason whatsoever no matter what the situation. Just to give you an idea of what was said though I've cleaned it up a bit and picked out the main points. It went something along the lines of I don't appreciate the way you've treated me all this time. You are not a very nice person and I would not feel any remorse if some bad things started to happen to you. Then there was a bunch of name calling before I said that our relationship was officially over and I would prefer if I never came in contact with him again. After that, I gave him an idea of what might happen to him if he ever told anybody that he and I were ever a couple or if he told anyone anything that we had done together. I gave a solid look to both of the brothers and they both quickly nodded in agreement before I had a chance to say anything directly to them.

I had gotten a good chunk of my anger out by now. And seeing Kyle squirming, shaking, and crying underneath my large bear paw made me feel even better. But I wanted to leave him with something that told him I was serious. Something that would prove to him just how crazy I could really be. It would get me into some trouble later on, but right now that was the last thing on my mind.

While giving him another menacing growl I extended the claws in my paw that was holding him down just enough so that they went right through his shirt and just managed to pierce his skin. His face opened up wide with shock as he felt my claws begin to dig in. I really couldn't understand what he tried to say as he realized what I was going to do. He was trying to cry, scream, and talk at the same time, and it all came out incomprehensibly. But I believe he said something along the lines of, "Don't kill me!" I calmly and sadistically explained to him what I was about to do and my reason for doing it before I started to slide my paw down his chest headed towards his stomach.

He tried to scream, but only his mouth was open; no sound was coming out. I slowly and painfully dragged my claws both through his T-shirt and through a tiny bit of his skin. Once I had reached the end of my paw's reach I gave one quick final snap of my paw, leaving a few nice sharp ending points on his stomach. Only then did I take my muzzle away from his face to look down and admire my work.

He had five almost perfect red incisions running down his chest and into his stomach which were slowly beginning to fill up with blood (although what remained of his shirt was doing a good job of soaking most of it up). I took a look at my paw and saw just the tips of my claws covered in a dark and sticky liquid. It felt good to see that again. No, it felt great. I hadn't felt like this since the end of the war, and I didn't know how I had survived until now. Seeing the blood slowly drip off my claws and onto the floor; hearing the desperate screams of someone who was completely at my mercy; knowing that you had the power to end someone's life in the blink of an eye if you wanted to; all of these things contributed to a feeling that felt like nothing else in the world.

I could've continued my torture; I wanted to continue my torture; but for the first time since waking up something was holding me back. Call it my humanity or whatever you want, but something told me that I had gotten my point across. I gave one last look at the trembling and crying mess of a man I use to think I loved before giving him one more growl and heading off back to the bedroom, demorphing along way.

I'm not sure what I was feeling at that point exactly, but I knew that I needed to get away. I needed to get away from Kyle, this cabin, and just my whole life in general. I needed some time by myself to figure things out now that someone had decided to throw a monkey wrench into the gears of my life.

I was about half human when I reached the bedroom, but that was more than enough for me. I climbed over the bed and headed towards the small closet which contained all of my important stuff: my passport, some cash, my credit cards, identification, etc. By the time I reached it I was fully human and I began to pack all of that into my handbag. And once I was done with that I went over to the window as I began to morph again.

I could still hear Kyle crying and complaining in the other room while I was human, but once I was almost fully an eagle he became unbearably loud. He kept complaining about how much it hurt and that he was going to die and all that. Once I was almost done morphing I told him, the following is the censored version of course, that I'd gotten worse injuries in every battle I'd been in and I always lived. I then questioned his manhood as well before throwing in a few extra names that I hadn't gotten out before. I heard him respond very rudely and I responded back just as rudely before I fluttered up to the windowsill, clutching my handbag in my talons, and finally flew away from that whole mess.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

NOTE: Alright, I'll admit it. The next few chapters are going to deal with how Rachel gets home and probably won't be the most exciting and/or plot developing chapters ever written. But they're necessary enough for the story itself that I decided to write them in anyway. If you think this story is getting too long and you want to skip ahead a couple chapters then this would be the time to do it. Anyway, enough negativity! On with chapter 6!

* * *

I flew. That's all I can really remember for the next little bit; flying and morphing every two hours. I just wanted to get away. I had to get away. I needed some time to figure out what was going on in my life. First of all I had just left Tobias and….

Oh man, Tobias! What had I done? What was I thinking? How could I do something like that? Tobias had always truly loved me, that I was sure of. He would never pretend to love me just so he could sleep with me. He truly cared for me because of who I was, not just how attractive I looked. And I just left him without even giving it a second thought.

Now I really felt horrible. I felt so bad that I couldn't even fly anymore. I found a tiny spot in between a few of the huge trees and made my way to the jungle floor where I demorphed and began to cry.

I'm not sure exactly who I was crying for, me or Tobias, but I just knew that it felt good to cry. I needed to cry. I hadn't cried like this since the end of the war.

It was then that I came up with a plan; just something to take my mind off of everything else really. I was going to do whatever I could to get back to Tobias as quick as possible. Maybe I could still fix this mess if I got back soon enough.

A plane wouldn't be coming to pick up the climbing team for another week, so I knew that was out. We did have a radio for emergencies, but I doubt they'd fly in because two people were having an "argument". And besides, I wasn't sure what I'd do to Kyle if I ever saw him again. I had already given him a nice scar to remember me by, but who knows what else I might do. There was no way I could spend even another day at the camp. So that only left one option, fly myself.

And so that's what I ended up doing. I already had all of my important papers with me, and I could always get some new gear if anything happened to mine, so I decided to head for the coast and hope that I could find a town with an airport.

I've had a decent amount of survival training (it was a big part of my certification), and before going on any exotic trip everyone was required to take a localized survival class (mandated by the rock climbing group I belonged to), so I wasn't worried too much about getting food and water. Even though the forest canopy was extremely thick my eagle eyes could still get a peak through it every once in a while. There's plenty of fruit trees just about everywhere and there's numerous streams out in the rainforest. I just had to filter the water a bit through my shirt and it would probably be drinkable. We all had gotten immunized from most of the diseases here before we came anyway, so I wasn't extremely worried about it.

But there was something I really was worried about, nightfall. I had been flying all day and I had made it to the coast, but I still didn't see any villages like I had hoped. I really didn't want to spend a night alone in the jungle with only the clothes on my back. There were too many nasty animals out there.

But luckily for me I didn't have to. Just as it was getting too dark to fly I saw a faint glow a small distance up the coast. And if something was glowing there was a good chance it was some sort of village. I beat my wings harder and flew towards it as fast as I could.

From far away it looked to be a decent sized village, but as I got closer it's size kept getting smaller. When I was almost directly above it I saw what it really was, a small fishing town.

There were about ten houses or so, only three of them having any light at all. And the ones that did have light didn't have much of it. It looked to be simple candlelight instead of anything electric. But it didn't matter to me. If one of these families were nice enough to take me in then I wouldn't have to sleep in the jungle. I dove on down and demorphed in front of the house with the brightest light before knocking on the door.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

NOTE: Please excuse my Portuguese! I don't speak it at all so I had to use an online translator. I'm not sure how accurate it really was...

* * *

A very Brazilian looking woman in her mid to late forties opened the door and recoiled in shock when she saw me. It looked like a small fishing town from what I could see at this time of night, so I guess they didn't get many strangers out here. But after a small moment of silence I began to talk.

"Hello, my name is Rachel. I was wondering if I could stay here tonight. I'm in need of a place to sleep."

But all I got was a blank stare from her. It was obvious that she didn't understand. So I tried something a bit simpler.

Annunciating slowly and clearly I said, "Do you speak English?"

Again, nothing but a blank stare. This was going to be harder than I thought. My Portuguese was almost non-existent and even my Spanish wasn't all that great. But I figured with some hand gestures I could get my point across.

"Um," I began again, trying to think of how to say sleep, "Dormir? Aqui. Para noche?"

At first I didn't think I got through, but suddenly she decided to say something. "Sim, sim, naturalmente! Entre, entre!"

She basically took my hand and pulled me through the door as she dragged me through the small house while speaking madly but quietly in Portuguese. I didn't catch what she said, but she must have asked me close to a million questions before pointing over to a small couch. I went to sit down as she went to grab me a pillow and a light blanket.

Her rapid fire Portuguese continued when she came back, but it soon dawned on her that I had no idea what she was saying. So as I lay down on the tiny couch (sometimes I really hated being so tall) she picked up a book that she must've been reading, blew out a candle or two, and left me alone in the living room so I could get some sleep. And was I ever in need of some sleep! I was both emotionally drained as well as physically drained, so sleep was a welcome sight.

I woke up way too early the next morning to the sight of a little boy staring me in the face. Once my eyes opened up he jumped in surprise and went to hide somewhere as I let out a big yawn. The woman who I had met last night then yelled out "Roberto, pare isso," before looking at me and saying, "Espero que ele não o despertou. Dormiu bem suficiente?" I wasn't exactly sure what she said, but I just nodded as I sat up and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.

I took a look around the room to see four pairs of eyes staring at me; the woman I had met last night, a man about the same age as her, a guy that looked about as old as me, and the twelve year old boy I had woken up to. They were all sitting around the table under candlelight and appeared to be eating breakfast before the sun had even come up.

Breaking the silence, the mother (I figured it was a family by now) said to me, "Tem fome? Gostaria de algum peixe?" When I didn't respond after a while she pointed to an empty seat at the table with a plate all set up. I didn't need to be told twice, I was starving.

I gobbled down my one small slice of fish meat in a hurry while everyone else watched. There was an eerie silence shortly after I finished, but eventually everyone started to ask me questions.

They didn't get very many answers though. Most of the time I had no idea what they were asking, and when I did have an idea I usually didn't know how to respond. But there was one thing I really wanted to get across myself and ask them; where was the closest airport? The only problem was that I couldn't remember how to say airplane or airport or anything else close in Portuguese.

So after about five minutes of me doing charades and making jet noises I think they finally got something. "Avião?" the little boy asked at first.

It had the avia- beginning so it sounded like aviation to me. I nodded my head and continued with my charades for just a bit longer to make sure they all understood.

Then the husband, whose name I learned was Miguèl, started to speak in a torrent of Portuguese which I didn't understand. I quickly put my hands up to stop him as I said, "Donde esta avião?"

He took a second to think over what I had said before pointing up the coast and saying, "Isso bem, um passeio do dia." I wasn't exactly sure what that meant, but at least now I had a direction to follow.

So once everyone finished eating Miguèl and Tomás (the older son) went off to get their boat ready while Roberto went off to school. I helped Marìa (the mom) clean up a bit before saying to her, "Parto."

She got what I meant and went on with another flood of Portuguese which I didn't understand. But she finally stopped when she handed me a piece of fish wrapped in some paper and said, "Isto é para você. A boa sorte em sua viagem."

It was then I said one of the few phrases I did know in Portuguese, "Muito obrigado para tudo."

"Bem-vindo, boa sorte!" she said to me as I walked on out the door.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

I began to walk up the path along the coast (probably the road where they transported the fish from the town) until I couldn't see the town anymore. Then, I quickly opened up my fish package and devoured it in no time. A small single slice of fish meat wasn't enough for me for breakfast, but I didn't want to seem rude by asking for more. So when Marìa had given me another slice I already knew what I was going to do with it. It's not like I could carry it with me as I flew or anything.

Once I had finished my meal I discarded the paper and began to morph. I wasn't sure how far the airport was or even if they had regular flights coming in or not, but I had to be prepared for the worst. And after about ten hours of flying the worst was beginning to come true.

But just as the sun was just beginning to set as I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a small city. There was just one problem; I didn't see an airport there. After searching the surrounding area until there was barely any light left I finally decided that I was going to have to ask someone. Hopefully I could find someone that spoke at least a bit of English this time.

I found an alleyway to demorph in and quickly morphed back to human. I took a quick look around and saw a semi-broken mirror leaning against the side of one of the buildings, so I decided to take a look at myself. I hadn't had a good shower in more than two days now, and rummaging around in trees for food didn't help me look my best. When I caught a glimpse of myself I was a bit shocked.

I wasn't extremely dirty, but my hair looked absolutely horrible. It was just one big knot and I was going to need a truckload of conditioner to get it back to normal. But unfortunately for me I didn't have a truck load of conditioner at this moment so I had to make due with using my hands to untie it and make it look as good as I could.

My clothes weren't looking to great either. All that climbing and shuffling through the trees had made more than a few rips in my T-shirt and shorts. There wasn't much I could do to fix that problem except tuck in the dangling pieces of fabric. I had to look somewhat presentable since I was going out on the street to ask people for help. I didn't want them to think that I was some crazy homeless person. But there was only so much I could do with what I had, so eventually I told myself that I looked good enough and made my way out of the alley.

The streets were pretty empty since it was getting late, but there were still a few stragglers out. I just had to ask the right one. I passed on a few older people before seeing a guy a few years younger than me walking down the street. I'm not sure what it was about him, but he just seemed like he'd be the one to ask.

I went up to him, trying to look as good as I could, and said, "Excuse me, do you speak English?"

He looked me over for a second before saying, "A little," with only a semi-thick accent.

I let out a big sigh of relief before continuing. "Do you know where the closest airport is?"

He thought for a bit before saying, "There is an airport about one hundred kilometers up the coastline," as he pointed the direction I was originally heading. So Miguèl had given me good instructions…

I thought about what to do next. One hundred kilometers was more than sixty miles, and I probably wasn't going to be able to fly that far in the dead of night.

"Is there a bus or a train or something else that can take me there from here?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yes," he began, "there is a bus, but it leaves early in the mornings."

Good, that meant no more flying. But that also meant that I would have to spend the night here.

I pondered my decision a bit more before saying, "Are there any hotels around here that I could stay in for the night?"

He looked like he was about to answer, but then he hesitated. "I know of a few places, but none of them are very good." He then gave a small pause before continuing. "If you need somewhere to stay you could come and stay with my family. We'd be happy to have you."

"Okay, thank you very much," I said, not really having very many other options.

"It's nothing," he said back, "but first I have to buy a few things. My mother wanted some extra ingredients for tomorrow's lunch, so I have to get them before the stores close."

I followed him as he stopped in the grocery store to pick up a few things and then I helped him carry everything to his house. All the while we talked. He seemed very curious about me and asked me a lot of questions, and after a few minutes with him I began to open up. I told him that I was rock climbing and got into a fight with someone else. They wouldn't send the plane in just to pick me up so I made my own way out. I got a few rides from some nice people and had arrived in his town that way. He seemed somewhat content with that story and we kept talking about normal things until he asked me a strange question. "Are you Rachel Beren- I mean Fangor?"

Just hearing that name hit me harder than anything else. It must have appeared to Carlos (that was his name) that I was trying to hide my identity and he'd just figured it out, but that was the last thing on my mind now.

"Um, yeah," I said weakly, still trying to recover from hearing the name Rachel Fangor, "how did you know?"

"I thought I recognized you," he said back with a grin. "Even with all you've been through you still look very beautiful."

"Thanks," I said back weakly again. I really hoped I hadn't pick the wrong person to spend the night with…

"And who else would go through all of the trouble of making her way through the jungle just so they could get away from someone they had a fight with?" he continued.

I wasn't sure exactly what that was supposed to mean, maybe something was lost in translation somewhere, but I quickly changed the topic.

"So, about your family…"


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

We continued talking about normal stuff until we reached his house. When we got there he introduced me to everyone and his mom quickly asked me if I was hungry. Of course I was starving by now since fruit was harder to get than I thought, so I quickly gobbled down whatever was put in front of me.

And while I was eating everyone, understandably, began to ask me questions (his entire family spoke at least a little bit of English). I mean, how many times do you have a global celebrity spend the night at your house? They asked me a few things about the war and my life shortly after it (only two or three questions were about Tobias and I tried to answer those as if nothing was going on. I really didn't want anybody else knowing what was happening between me and Tobias. If the media found out we'd both never hear the end of it.)

Most of the questions though dealt with what I was doing all the way out here and what I had done the past few days. I was pretty open about most of the details now since they knew who I really was, but the one thing I still kept secret was why I really left the camp in the first place. I just told them that I had an argument with someone else there and wanted to get back home. Whenever they tried to ask more about it my answer was always that I didn't want to talk about it.

So, after the barrage of a million different questions they seemed to be satisfied enough. After that Carlos helped me plan out my trip for tomorrow. We called the bus company and got the schedule and fares, and then we even called the airport and got a few flight options. They didn't have a flight that went directly to LAX, but they had a flight that left just after the bus dropped me off that would take me to São Paulo. From there I should be able to catch a flight back to the United States.

After we finished our marathon of calls it was kind of late. I had an early bus to catch and everyone else had work/school to go to in the morning, so we all decided to call it a night.

This family even had a guest bedroom so I didn't have to sleep on the couch. I washed up a bit (I felt weird taking a shower in a complete stranger's home, so I limited myself to what I could do in the sink), and then I climbed into the cozy bed and quickly fell asleep. It looked like it would be easy getting home now; the hard part was over.

I woke up when Carlos entered the room and gave me a small shake. I still didn't get the amount of sleep I was use to getting, but I forced myself to get up. With a big yawn I stretched out and slowly walked out of the bedroom.

After using the bathroom and making myself look as good as I could I came out to see the whole family sitting out and quickly eating breakfast. I joined them at the table as Carlos' mom handed me a few slices of warm buttered bread and an apple. I quickly ate everything since I was already sort of running late. When I finished I thanked the entire family while Carlos and I ran out the door. He was going to show me where the bus station was before he made his way off to his job at the market.

As we briskly walked we talked about how nice his family was and how well I slept and all the normal guest topic discussions until the bus station came into view. He pointed it out since it was a bit out of his way and I thanked him again for everything. He modestly said, "You're welcome." before I gave him a goodbye hug. I quickly began walking towards the bus stop as I watched him turn around and head of in the other direction.

I made it to the station just as the bus was arriving and I quickly climbed aboard. From there it was about an hour and a half drive to the airport where I quickly had to buy my plane ticket and board the somewhat small passenger plane for my trip to São Paulo. Once we took off I decided to catch up on my sleep a bit. I asked the stewardess for a pillow before closing my eyes and letting my sleepiness get the better of me.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

NOTE: Alright, enough of this traveling stuff (well, maybe not exactly yet), it's time to get back into some kind of plot development (sort of, a bit, really close to the end of this chapter, slightly...)

* * *

It wasn't that long of a flight before we touched down at São Paulo. I only woke up because the person sitting next to me was trying to get out. So I sleepily moved my legs and let the woman out as I tried hard to wake myself up.

Once I finally got myself to move out of the chair and get off the plane I checked in with the airline desks to see if I could catch a quick flight, but either the flights they had going to California were already full or they didn't have any leaving until the weekend. I must have gone through all of them before I found one leaving tomorrow morning heading for San Francisco. It was a bit far from my own home, but it was the fastest way to get back to the United States. Plus, I wasn't really thinking all that clearly now. I was close to getting back with Tobias and those thoughts were starting to clog my head.

So, now that I had my flight booked I had nothing to do for the next twelve hours or so. And since I was in a big city now I didn't have to ask to stay with someone, I had hotels; real good ones.

I stopped at the closest good looking one I saw and got myself a room for the night. And the first thing I did was run up to it to take a shower which eventually turned into a full blown bath. I felt disgusting!

I must have spent hours in there because when I looked at my hands they were prunier than I'd ever seen them. I quickly stepped out of the bathtub and I let the water drain as I dried myself off. But there was just one problem. In my haste to clean myself off I forgot that I didn't have any clean clothes. So I had no choice but to put my dirty and torn morphing clothes back on. I had to go out and buy some new ones as soon as I could. I'd have to take another quick shower again, but it was better than walking around town in a bath towel.

So after I dried myself off that's what I did. I took my torn handbag and decided to go shopping. It wasn't only for clothes, but I also needed some other toiletries as well: a hair brush, some deodorant, a toothbrush, some make-up, etc. I needed to look as good as I could when I came home to Tobias. That way he might be more willing to take me back after what I had done to him…

Even through I've had a lot to worry about these past few days Tobias was never far from my mind. I would always picture him waiting right by the window looking out for any sign that I was coming back. All the good memories we had together came flooding back to me on those long and boring flights down the coast, and I think I loved him even more now than I ever had before. I wanted him back even more than he wanted me back probably, and I couldn't wait to see him again. So, when I saw a cybercafé with a bunch of computers set up I knew what I was going to do.

I did have a computer along with me on my rock climbing trip (that Tobias had gotten me for my birthday one year) and I did have a global satellite internet connection (also thanks to Tobias), but I couldn't get a signal back at the camp (A signal everywhere in the world, huh? That's total BS…) I felt bad about not leaving a better note for Tobias, so I wanted to write him one that explained everything better. I wrote it on the next-to-last plane ride I took, but whenever I tried to connect to the internet at the base camp it wouldn't let me. I finally gave up on it and decided to send it when I got back to California. I wasn't sure that I wanted to see what Tobias had written to me anyway either. He really wasn't one to get angry or anything (I'd only really seen him get angry once or twice), but then again I had never broken up with him before. I was scared of hearing what he might say to me.

But now the circumstances were different and I didn't care what Tobias had said, I just wanted to be able to speak to him again and explain everything. Maybe I could even pass it off as an exceptionally mean April Fool's joke (even though it was only early March). I knew one thing for sure though, the sooner I got in contact with him the better.

I sat down by one of the computers and typed in the address to my email account first. Along with the usual spam and various other things I saw a single message from Tobias. I really wasn't sure if I should open it or not, but curiosity eventually got the better of me.

As I read the message it seemed like the normal everyday message Tobias usually sent me while I was away. He had even written another song for me. As you can probably guess I was more than a bit confused. But then a thought popped into my mind. What if he hadn't seen my note? What if it had been blown off the table and landed under the fridge or something? I mean, there was no other explanation really; that must have been it!

You have no idea how big a sigh of relief I let out sitting by that computer. Although I had royally screwed things up this time I had the opportunity to set everything straight while Tobias didn't even know I was gone. I was beyond thrilled.

But there was one thing in the email that was left to go over, the song. Tobias had written me a whole bunch of songs before and they were always really sweet, but after hearing nothing but sappy love songs from him they did start to become a little bit annoying. However, he did say that this one would be different though so I decided to download it and give it a listen. I threw on the nearby headphones and turned the volume up. I wasn't prepared for what I heard.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

The second the song started I knew something was wrong. This wasn't anywhere near what Tobias usually writes. It was too fast and… and… angry sounding. But when the lyrics kicked in my hope of him not seeing the note vanished. He'd seen it all right, and this song was proof of how he felt about it.

I listened to every painstaking word. I had been so happy and optimistic beforehand, but now I felt like my insides were cut into shreds. That wasn't some angry alternative rock singer singing about how much he hated his girlfriend, that was Tobias singing about me! I had never heard him say anything even remotely like this the entire time I'd known him. But there he was calling me a whore, a bitch, and everything else you associate with those words. I couldn't believe it.

After the song ended I just stared at the screen in shock. I didn't know what else to do. No one had ever spoken to me like that before, especially not Tobias. And the part that hurt the most was that it was all true, every single word of it. I was a whore, I was a bitch, and I deserved to be called everything Tobias had said in the song.

I continued staring at the screen until someone came over and tapped me on the shoulder to see if I was alright. I weakly said, "Yeah," before I got my mind back together enough to get up, grab my stuff, and walk back to my hotel.

I tried to hold it in until I got to my room and luckily I was just able to. As soon as I opened the door I threw my shopping bag onto the floor and collapsed onto the bed. It was then I did something I absolutely hated to do and I've only really done a few times in my life; I began to cry.

I wasn't sure who I was crying for the most, me or Tobias. I felt terrible for putting him in that position and doing everything I did to him. I had never seen or even heard him that angry before, so I could only imagine what he was going through right now. He had probably already burned anything of mine that I had left at the house. And he had probably already told the media most of my deepest and darkest secrets just to get back at me.

And then there was me. I had screwed everything up this time. And this wasn't just a small little thing, this was my entire life. I wanted nothing more than to be with Tobias again, but now I wasn't even sure he wanted me back. What if he wanted nothing else to do with me? I couldn't really blame him for it. I made him give up just about everything he loved in his life to be with me and then I go out and ruin it by doing something as stupid as this. Words can not describe how bad I felt at that moment.

The only thing I could do was cry, and cry I did. I must have fallen asleep at some point though because the next thing I remember was getting my wake-up call.

After answering the phone I just rolled over and began to stare at the ceiling. There was no reason for me to get up. There was no reason for me to catch my flight. There was no reason for me to go back home. I knew Tobias didn't want anything to do with me anymore. Even though he never directly said so it was painstakingly obvious. I'd never seen him this mad over anything before, so what I did to him must have really hurt him more that I ever thought it could've. I'd screwed up and now I had to pay the consequences.

So I just laid there in bed and stared at the ceiling. Sometimes I cried and sometimes I just stared off into space. I didn't have anything better to do. But eventually I had enough. I took few deep breaths to calm myself down as I began to figure out what to do next.

I knew one thing straight away; I had to get on that flight. There was absolutely nothing for me here in São Paulo and at the very least I needed to get back to the United States. But once I got there what was I going to do?

Well, I guess I could go to one of my parent's houses. But that wouldn't work. I'd have to explain everything to them that was going on and I really didn't want to do that. Sure, they were my parents and they'd still love me no matter what I said, but I really didn't want anyone else knowing what really was going on. The more people that knew the better chance of someone letting something slip into the media. And if that happened my entire life would really be ruined. So I only had one other option; go back to my home and plead with Tobias to forgive me.

Content with my reasoning I looked up that the clock on the wall and almost had a heart attack. I was hoping to get as much sleep as I could last night so I had the wake-up call set for as late as possible. And that was assuming that I got up immediately, got ready quickly, checked out quickly, and ran to the airport. Let's just say that lying in bed and staring at the ceiling wasn't part of my original plan. So I quickly jumped out of bed, grabbed my handbag and the bag that had all the stuff I'd bought yesterday, and ran out the door.

I literally threw the keys to my room at the person behind the counter and yelled, "I'm checking out," as I quickly ran out the door and down the street.

I didn't think I was going to make it when I entered the airport, but luckily my flight had been delayed about half an hour due to a storm that popped up over the airport. I made it through security and the whole mess just as they were about to pull away the entrance ramp.

I quickly found my seat as the plane began to taxi and take off. Once the fasten seatbelt sign got turned off I quickly grabbed my bag of stuff and made my way to the bathroom. Since I hadn't had time to do anything this morning I was going to have to do everything in the plane's bathroom.

Everything was going good until I got to my new set of clothes. They had looked nice on the manikin at the store, but right now in my current condition they looked horrible on me. So I took them off and replaced them with my old and tattered clothes which really didn't look so bad anymore.

My normally flat and dull looking hair had all sorts of volume and fluff to in now that I hadn't really combed it in days. I had sort of a retro 80's hair thing going on and my ripped, torn, and dirtied clothes just added to my 80's-ness. It wasn't a bad look for me really; I kind of liked it.

So after finishing with the rest of my routine (the people banging on the door to use the bathroom made me finish a bit quicker) I went and sat back down in my seat and prepared for a long series of flights.

We made a few quick stops and flight changes along the way, but most of the day I was flying. And while I was flying I could either watch the crappy movie that was playing or do what I really did; think about what I was going to say to Tobias to win him back. And by the time the plane finally landed in San Francisco I was as ready as I ever would be to see him. There was just one little thing I had forgotten to take into account. How was I going to get home?

I didn't know of any bus stops that were close to my house, a taxi would cost a small fortune, and I couldn't call any of my friends to drive me since I'd have to explain at least part of what I was doing to them. I guess I could've rented a car or something, but I really wasn't thinking all too clearly. Tobias was so close and I really wanted to get to him as soon as possible. So, I did what I had been doing for the past few days. If it had worked then it had no reason not to work now. I found a quiet spot outside the airport and began to morph.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

My plan seemed good enough, but there was one critical thing I overlooked. There was nowhere near enough sunlight to fly back to my house from San Francisco. The time zone differences between California and Brazil helped me get a bit more sunlight, but it still was far from enough. And I only began to realize my mistake when the sun started to go down while I was still in the middle of nowhere.

I kept flying until it was pitch dark and both my wings were about to give out. It was only then that I finally realized that I wasn't going to make it home like this. I couldn't see anything anymore even with my eagle eyes: There was almost no moon out tonight, I was in the middle of nowhere so there weren't any houses around, and the stars weren't really helping me all that much. And to top it all off there were no thermals anymore and flapping my gigantic wings was extremely tiring. I finally admitted defeat and somehow managed to find a branch to perch on and demorph.

After thinking about what to do for awhile I came up with three options. Option number one was to morph something that could make it's way through the night at a decent speed so I could get back home tonight, and the best animal I had for that was a wolf. But there were some problems with that idea. If I started running through the woods then I'd more than likely stumble into other wolves' territory. And if I happened to actually come across a pack of wolves in their own territory then I had no idea what they might do to me. That was one thing, but the second thing really made me change my mind. In all reality I didn't have much of a clue where I was to begin with, so running along the ground would be the worst way to find some familiar landmark that I knew. I needed an aerial view with a good set of eyes to help me find my way home, that much I knew for sure.

So my second plan was to morph an owl and continue on my way as soon as I could. But that had its problems too. Owls aren't built for flying great distances really and I had no idea how much farther I had to go to reach my house. If it was only two-dozen miles or so then I probably could've toughed it out, but I could've been hundreds off course for all I knew. I could never make it that far and if I tried who knows what might happen. I knew the general direction I should be going, but I never exactly flew from San Francisco to my house before.

So that left me with only the last option to choose from which was the one that I wanted to do the least; sleep here for the night. Sure, the forests in California might not be as dangerous as the jungle in Brazil, but there's still plenty of animals that could kill you: Wolves, bears, snakes, etc. And there weren't any houses around either, so I couldn't ask to stay with anyone (not that I would really want to ask anyway. It'd be all over the news the next day and I'd have a lot of questions to answer…) But even with all the negatives it still seemed like the best thing to do. Even though I had done nothing except sit on my butt for most of the day I was still tired: Tired from flying, tired from morphing, and tired from not sleeping enough the past few days. The tree branch I was sitting on was looking more and more comfortable every second.

So I finally decided to go with my third plan and to rest in that tree for the rest of the night. That way the wolves wouldn't bother me, the bears probably wouldn't bother me, and everything else that lived on the ground wouldn't bother me either. I stretched out and found a comfortable position to put my body in and I slowly began to drift off to sleep.

I woke up the next morning when a crow decided to begin cawing literally straight into my ear. I gave it an angry but sleepy whack with my hand and it quickly flew away. Now I saw why Tobias hated those things so much. With a yawn I tried to stretch out a bit but my whole body felt the pain of sleeping in such a weird position. But by being careful I was able to eventually get my body untwisted and back to being movable again. That was the last time I would ever sleep in a tree.

I looked towards the sun and realized that it had just barely finished rising. I was hungry, I was cold, I was dirty and smelly and tree-scented, but there was only one thing on my still sleep deprived mind. I had to get to Tobias. So I quickly morphed and took off.

It took me until about noon to make it home. I wasn't that incredibly far away, but it took me awhile to finally get my bearings once I saw something I knew. After flying in the wrong direction a few times I finally caught a glimpse of our local town and managed to find my way back home from there. I was glad that I didn't try and fly home as an owl last night. I'd probably be somewhere in Nevada by now…

Anyway, once I found our house I circled around for a bit because I was too nervous to land. I had been practicing what I was going to say and what I was going to do in response to almost any imaginable thing Tobias could say to me, but that didn't help me with actually flying down to the front door and ringing the doorbell.

Finally I had enough. I was Xena! The fearless warrior! And I was scared about talking to someone? What had I let myself turn into? I took one big breath and dove for the front porch.

But after I finished demorphing I realized that I wasn't Xena, I was just as scared as anyone else would've been in the same situation. I was tempted to re-morph and just fly away again until I could get my courage back up, but I was so close. I just had to do it; it was now or never.

I tentatively walked up to the doorbell and just barely pushed the button. As soon as I heard the bell ring inside I quickly began fixing up my hair and my now tattered clothes to look as good as I could. But after about a minute or so my anxiety began to decrease. No one had come to the door.

So, with a bit more confidence this time, I pressed the doorbell harder. Again I could hear it echo inside the large house and again no one answered the door. I knew Tobias had to be home because his car was still in the driveway, so I continued to hit the doorbell and knock on the door.

After about what had to be the twelfth time or so I heard someone unlocking the door and I quickly got the urge to run away again. But there'd be no more running from me. I had run away once already and I was going to make sure that I'd never do that to Tobias again. But when he opened the door all the confidence I had managed to build up ever since I decided to come back to him suddenly vanished as the door opened.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Note: Alright, enough of this side-adventure crap, it's time to get back into the real story. Rachel has made it back to their house, so what's Tobias' reaction going to be? Since I didn't think it'd be fair just to have the chapter from one of their perspectives I wrote it out for both of them. You can read your favorite one, you can read both, or I guess you can read none at all... Anyway, on to the chapter! Enjoy!

* * *

Tobias

There was Rachel, standing on the front porch looking as beautiful as I remembered her. She looked like she'd been living in the woods for the past week, but I didn't care. Her hair was a mess but I didn't care. Her clothes were hanging onto her by threads but I didn't care. She looked like she was covered in a layer of dirt and filth but I didn't care. I thought that I'd never see her again but there she was, standing on the porch right in front of me. The only reason she'd have for coming back here was… that she had come back for me!

After getting over my initial shock I continued to look her over as I tried to say something, but nothing came out. I had the perfect opportunity to run up and hug her, but I couldn't move. All I could do was stand there and look at her standing shyly on the front porch.

After a long moment of silence between the both of us Rachel was finally able to get some words out. "Um," she said with a shy and weak voice, "hi Tobias."

I wanted to run out to her. I wanted to grasp her in my arms and hold her tighter that I ever had before. I wanted more than anything to take her back and forgive her for everything that's happened. I wanted to hold her and whisper in her ear that everything was going to be alright. She was back; she was finally back!

But the longer we stood there in silence the longer I had to think about it. I wanted to hug her, sure, but she had done something horrible to me. As much as I wanted to push my anger aside it kept coming back. I tried to fight it but it was no use. Rachel had done just about the worst thing imaginable to me and I wasn't going to let her get away with it. In fact, the longer I thought about it the more resentful of her I became. She had ripped my life apart like it didn't even matter to her and now I was thinking of just taking her back that quick? How do I know she wouldn't do the same thing again when someone else came along? How did I know that she really wanted me back? How did I know that _I_ even wanted her back? She destroyed my life before so what was to stop her from doing it again?

I let my anger drive my response as I said, "You've got a lot of nerve coming back here."

She recoiled as if someone had hit her when she heard that. For just a split second I felt bad about saying it and the way it had come out, but I quickly went back to being angry. If it hurt her then she deserved it. Anger was turning out to be a much more powerful emotion than compassion right now.

After she recoiled I could see tears start to form in her eyes as she began to cry. Again I had that slight feeling of sympathy for her, but it was quickly replaced, although not as fast this time, with my anger. But when she started talking I couldn't help but listen. "Tobias, I'm so sorry. I screwed everything up by doing something completely stupid. I have no idea what I was thinking. There's no excuse for what I did and I deserve everything you think about me and more. The song that you made was true; all of it was true. I just ran out on you like you didn't even matter to me anymore. But you do matter to me! You matter to me more than anything else in the world, and I feel terrible that I had to do something like this to figure that out. I feel horrible about it; worse than I've ever felt in my life. You weren't just using me for sex like the idiot I left you for, you truly cared for me because of who I was. That kind of caring is hard to find anywhere and I just went and ruined it. If you never want to see me again then I'd understand, but the reason I came back here is to ask you to forgive me. I know I've been the worst wife on the planet, but I'm sorry, so sorry! Please Tobias, can you ever forgive me? I love you and I'll do anything to prove it to you!"

I think there was more to her little speech, but it became unintelligible after awhile. She had started crying harder the farther she went into her speech, and by the end I could just barely understand her words.

But something hit a tone with me. Even being her husband I had only seen Rachel cry a few times, and most of those were nothing more than a tear or two. She hated crying and would always try and hide the fact that she was doing it, even with me. But now, she was going at it full tilt out on the doorstep where everyone could see her. It made me realize that what she said was true and that she really did want things back to how they were. But there was one thing she said in her speech that really caught my attention. I could've picked a whole bunch of things to focus on, but there was one thing in particular that I had to hear again to believe.

"Wait a minute," I said to her, feeling my anger starting to creep up into me again, "you slept with him too?!"

I already knew the answer, but I was angry at myself for not realizing it sooner. Rachel hadn't just run away with someone so she could play cards with him, she had run away with him for, well, _HIM. _And I was too stupid and naive to realize what that really meant before. They had done everything together that any couple would do, including the stuff that only Rachel and I should've done between us. I can't believe that I didn't realize that until now. And when Rachel painfully nodded her head I felt an anger that I had never felt before; partially for me not realizing it and partially for her doing it.

"God damnit Rachel," I yelled louder than I ever had at Rachel before as I slammed my fist into the doorframe, "what the hell is wrong with you?"

She instantly began to break down and cry again, but I wasn't falling for it this time. I was angrier than I'd ever been at that moment. It would take a lot to cool me down after that.

"I know," she was somehow able to say through my tears, "I know, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry Tobias."

"Sorry?!" I yelled back at her while feeling the rage pump through my veins, "SORRY?! You think that just by saying sorry it'll make everything better? Not only did you leave me for someone else but you had sex with him as well! We had made a promise to each other Rachel. It was the most important promise someone can ever make with someone else. We promised to be together forever until we died, just the two of us, but you had to go and piss all over that promise. And now you think that just by saying you're sorry everything will go back to how it was?"

She was crying harder than I'd ever seen her cry by now, and she deserved every moment. But I couldn't help feeling sorry for her now. I had gotten out a good bit of my rage after yelling at her, so now I was focused in on her crying. She had never cried like this before and she usually tried as hard as possible to hide it when she cried at all. The longer she cried the more I felt like she was being 100 sincere. But that didn't mean I was ready to forgive her just like that. She still had hurt me more than I though was possible and I wasn't going to let her get away with that. By the time she started speaking again I wasn't sure how I was feeling; everything was starting to mix up inside me.

"I know that I broke the most important promise I'd ever made," she began through her tears, "and that I also lost your trust too, but I've come back here to at least begin to try and make things better. I feel awful about doing what I did and I fully deserve whatever you think of me. If you never want to see me again then I deserve it, but I want you to know that I still love you Tobias. In fact, I probably love you more right now then I ever have before. If there's anything I could do to prove to you how sorry I am and how much I care for you I'll do it."

"You think that just by doing a few chores around the house that everything will go back to the way it was before you left?" I said back to her, angrier about how stupid that sounded more than anything else.

"Tobias," she said while wiping her tears away yet again, "I'll do anything to prove to you that I made a huge mistake and that I'm extremely sorry. Anything at all! I love you and I want nothing more than to have things the way they were before."

Here it was, my chance to get my revenge. I hadn't exactly been staring blankly at the ceiling or at the TV the entire time Rachel had been gone, I had been thinking. Thinking about what I might do to Rachel if she ever came back. Now, my ideas had ranged from killing her outright to welcoming her back with open arms, but I did have a few ideas in between. And out of all of those I had just decided which one I was going to use. It would be a bit extreme, but it would prove to me without a doubt that Rachel was not only sorry for doing what she had done, but was willing to go to extremes to get me back.

"Follow me," I said to her quickly as I turned around and began walking into the house. I didn't even wait to see if she would follow because I knew she would. She had no idea what she was getting into.

Rachel

I gave him a quick look when he opened the door, but once his eyes met mine I couldn't look into them for long. I felt myself shy away while I diverted my gaze into the ground. I brought my shoulders in and bent my knees a bit to look as small and weak as possible. I didn't do it on purpose, it just kind of happened. I was use to being the dominant one in the relationship, but now I felt the cruel swapping of positions as I was ready to plead and beg for Tobias to take me back.

But just because I didn't look at him for long didn't mean I didn't get a good look at him. He looked like he hadn't gotten up and out of bed for a week. His normal slightly messy hair had turned into a massive knot while trying to stick up just about everywhere. He was also wearing a very old T-shirt and sweat pants that had all sorts of food stains splattered across them. And to top it all off he had a week's old stubble on his usually clean-shaven face.

Both of us just stood there in silence since neither one of us really knew what to do. I had no idea what was going through Tobias' head, but one of us eventually had to break the silence between us. It would probably be better if I did it.

"Um," I said with a weak and cracky voice, "hi Tobias."

I was still avoiding Tobias' gaze so I didn't see his reaction, but what he said in response probably said it all.

"You've got a lot of nerve coming back here."

I recoiled back a bit when I heard that because it was like a slap on the face. I had expected a few possible reactions from Tobias, but this was the worst case scenario. I could hear anger in his voice that I had never heard before and I thought for sure that he wanted nothing more to do with me. It hurt. It hurt badly. Tobias had gone from loving me as much as he possibly could to hating me as much as he possibly could all because of one stupid mistake on my part. I knew then that there was probably no way he'd ever accept me back, but I had to try. I couldn't live with myself if I just walked away now after all I'd been through. As I felt the tears start to form in my eyes I began what might have been my last words to Tobias.

"Tobias, I'm so sorry. I screwed everything up by doing something completely stupid. I have no idea what I was thinking. There's no excuse for what I did and I deserve everything you think about me and more. The song that you made was true; all of it was true. I just ran out on you like you didn't even matter to me anymore. But you do matter to me! You matter to me more than anything else in the world, and I feel terrible that I had to do something like this to figure that out. I feel horrible about it; worse than I've ever felt in my life. You weren't just using me for sex like the idiot I left you for, you truly cared for me because of who I was. That kind of caring is hard to find anywhere and I just went and ruined it. If you never want to see me again then I'd understand, but the reason I came back here is to ask you to forgive me. I know I've been the worst wife on the planet, but I'm sorry, so sorry! Please Tobias, can you ever forgive me? I love you and I'll do anything to prove it to you!"

After my little speech I was starting to drown in my own tears. I took a second to wipe away the tears from my eyes with whatever was left of my sleeve and gather myself back together before Tobias finished digesting what I had just said. But his response wasn't something I was expecting.

"Wait a minute," he said with a somewhat angry tone, "you slept with him too?!"

I had walked straight into that one. There was no point in trying to lie now, he already knew the truth. I just slowly nodded as I quickly made some shy eye contact with him for a split second. I will never forget how angry he looked when I confirmed what he already knew.

"God damnit Rachel," he quite literally yelled out at me as he slammed his fist into the doorframe, "what the hell is wrong with you?"

I couldn't help myself after hearing that and broke down to tears again. "I know," I was somehow able to say through my tears, "I know, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry Tobias."

"Sorry?!" he yelled back at me, "SORRY?! You think that just by saying sorry it'll make everything better? Not only did you leave me for someone else but you had sex with him as well! We had made a promise to each other Rachel. It was the most important promise someone can ever make with someone else. We promised to be together until we died, just the two of us, but you had to go and piss all over that promise. And now you think that just by saying you're sorry everything will go back to how it was?"

I was enveloped with tears by now. So much so that I had trouble getting out anything that could be recognized as words. But I was eventually able to calm myself down enough so I could talk again.

"I know that I broke the most important promise I'd ever made and that I also lost your trust too, but I've come back here to at least begin to try and make things better. I feel awful about doing what I did and I fully deserve whatever you think of me. If you never want to see me again then I deserve it, but I want you to know that I still love you Tobias. In fact, I probably love you more right now then I ever have before. If there's anything I could do to prove to you how sorry I am and how much I care for you I'll do it."

"You think that just by doing a few chores around the house that everything will go back to the way it was before you left?" Tobias said back to me, not as forcefully as his previous statements though.

"Tobias," I said while wiping the tears away yet again, "I'll do anything to prove to you that I made a huge mistake and that I'm extremely sorry. Anything at all! I love you and I want nothing more than to have things the way they were before."

After a short moment of silence I got up enough courage to look into his face again. He was busy thinking about what I said, but his stubble still made him look as angry as I'd ever seen him.

After a while he turned his eyes to meet mine and said, "Follow me," before turning around and making his way into the house. I hesitated just a split second before tentatively following him inside.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Note: I'm sorry it took so long for me to get this chapter up, but I've been busy with finals and moving and all that other fun stuff. I've left you hanging for long enough, here's chapter 14!

* * *

Rachel

I slowly followed him inside and closed the door. I saw Tobias walk into the living room and pick something up off the coffee table. Then he proceeded to make his way through the living room and out the other side as I tentatively followed behind.

When we made it to the sliding glass door leading to the back porch he quickly slid it open and stepped outside again. I wasn't far behind as I stepped through it and closed it behind me.

So there we both were, standing on the porch. Neither one of us looked all that presentable to the public, yet we were both out in the open for everyone to see. I really hadn't thought about it until now, but I was starting to grow a bit worried about what Tobias had in store for me. I had never seen him that angry before so I had no idea what he might do. My thoughts ranged from something mild to a few things that I would never believe Tobias was capable of doing. But to be honest I really didn't know what Tobias was capable of anymore. I gave a questioning look to Tobias after a brief moment of both of us just standing there. As if he read my mind, he gave me my first instruction.

"Morph," was all he said.

I was a bit confused to say the least. I had expected a whole slew of things that he could've said, but morph wasn't one of them. Where he was going with this I wasn't sure, but I did see a chance to get on his good side. I decided to give it a shot.

"But Tobias," I began, trying to sound as sweet and sincere as I could, "I promised you that I would never morph again." The moment those words left my mouth I knew I had said the wrong thing.

"Bullcrap!" Tobias yelled back at me, making me take a step back, "I've seen you morph half-a-dozen times at least! Don't try and pull that crap on me!"

Not only did I not make myself look good, I made myself look even worse. It was true that I had morphed a few times since Tobias and I got married, but it was usually just out of habit; I never really meant to do it. The first time Tobias had caught me was only a few months after our honeymoon was over. That led to our first and most intense fight yet, well, up until now anyway. But after a day or two we both finally started to come around and we made up. I had morphed a few times after that, but I never thought Tobias had seen me again. It wasn't like I was trying to break my promise to him; it was just that I was really used to morphing by now and it just sort of happened almost naturally. But now I was about to do it again, right in front of him.

I knew there was nothing that I could say to make the current situation any better so I decided to forget about it and move on. "Morph into what?" I asked with a defeated tone in my voice.

"Doesn't matter," Tobias replied quickly. Now I was really starting to get worried. If he had something specifically planned then he should've had a specific morph he wanted me to use. But since he just wanted me to morph I had absolutely no idea what he could've been planning.

I thought about it for a second and finally decided on what I was going to morph into. The female red-tail I had acquired for our wedding was my first choice, but since my comment hadn't worked out like I had planned I was a little weary of that morph backfiring as well. And there was a possibility of the same thing happening with my Eagle morph. So, that left me with one other basic option.

I began to walk down the stairs of the deck and onto the back lawn while the changes began. I was going to be getting a bit heavy, so I didn't want to possibly damage the deck. By the time I reached the bottom it was already getting hard to walk. I ended up tipping over onto my front paws just as they became strong enough to support me. My body was already covered with hair at that moment so I just had to gain a bit more mass and have my face rearrange itself before I would be finished.

Once the final changes had taken place I turned around to look back at Tobias through my bear's eyes. He was busy fiddling with the thing he'd picked up in the living room, but he finished soon enough. He placed whatever it was behind him on the patio table we had on our porch and he turned to look at me.

After an awkward moment of silence I called out to him, _So, what do you want me to do now Tobias?_

He moved out of the way of the object as he sat down in a chair. "Now, we wait," he said as I managed to catch a glimpse of what he had been hiding. It was a digital clock and the LED's were like lasers to my bear eyes. I could see everything all too clearly when the numbers changed from 2:00 to 1:59.

It took me a little bit to figure out what was really going on, but once I did I was terrified. _Oh, no,_ I said in horror, _Oh, no, no, no, no. Are you crazy Tobias? I can't do this!_

"This is the only way to prove that you're truly sorry," he said back in an oddly calm tone. "This way you'll prove that you're willing to give up everything just to be with me, just like I did with you."

_But Tobias_, I pleaded_, this is crazy! Just step back and think about this for a second._

"I have been thinking," he struck back. I could hear the anger start to make its way back into his voice. "I've had more than an entire week to think about it since you decided to leave. And this is the only thing that could prove to me that you truly want me back. You did say that you would do anything."

_Yeah,_ I said in defense. I hadn't really meant it literally. It was more of just something you're supposed to say in my situation. But now it was coming back to bite me. _But this is just crazy Tobias. I can't do it. _ And with that I began to demorph.

Tobias looked very sternly at me when I started to demorph and said, "If you don't want to do this for me then you can just leave."

There was something about the way he said it that made me realize he wasn't joking around. I froze right in the middle of demorphing and began to think. There was no way I could actually become a bear nothlit, but there was no way I could leave Tobias either. He had meant what he said now, but two hours was a long time. Maybe he'd reconsider eventually. I mean, he couldn't possibly want to be married to a bear, could he?

So my only option was to wait it out and try and convince him later. He was probably just acting on an impulse now, so in an hour or so he'd have to see what he was really doing. I reversed my morph and went completely back to being a bear. I didn't have anything to say back to Tobias at this point, so I just plopped down on the soft grass and waited.

A half-hour slowly turned into an hour which even slowly turned into an hour and a half. All the while I lay there, trying to choose my argument and hoping that Tobias would realize what he was really doing. When the clock hit 0:15 I couldn't wait any longer.

_Tobias_, I started, breaking the long silence between us, _I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything that's happened over the past week and everything that's lead up to it. I know that you're mad at me and you have every right to be, but I'm asking you to reconsider this whole nothlit thing. I know that you feel like this is what I did to you, but this is different. You were born a human and were just living the life of a hawk. To go back to being human was only natural to you. I know you liked being a hawk, but that wasn't who you truly were._

_But what you're trying to make me do isn't natural at all. I wasn't born a bear, so trying to make me become a bear nothlit is different. I know that you're doing this to make a point, but I can honestly say that I understand what you're trying to do. I know it doesn't seem like I gave up very much to be with you but I have. Marriage is a balancing act between what both people want and I've given as much as I could to make you happy. Look, I know I've screwed up and I know I deserved to be punished, but this is a little extreme. Look down deep in yourself and see if this is what you truly want. Because if I do become a nothlit things will definitely change, and most of that change will be for the worst._

Well, that was my speech. I had put a lot of time into crafting it and it was my last hope of being able to stay a human. I could only hope that Tobias had enough time to realize what he was doing.

"You have no idea what I gave up for you," was his response. That was one of the last things I wanted to hear. "I gave up my entire life! Everything I enjoyed about my hawk life was gone. No more soaring, no more diving, no more riding the thermals; they were all gone. And they weren't gone until I felt like bringing them back every now and then, they were gone forever! No matter how much I try I will never get to do any of that again. And now you think that just by spending close to two hours in a morph it'll give you enough insight into how I feel?"

I never knew he felt so strongly about it before. I was pretty sure that he missed being a hawk at least a little bit, but I never would've imagined he missed it as much as he seemed to. But I wasn't going to give up yet. I hadn't stayed alive this long by giving up.

_But Tobias_, I said, trying to change the subject a bit, _you'll be married to a bear. A MALE bear. Just think about the consequences of what you're doing._

"It doesn't matter to me what you are on the outside," Tobias said sounding incredibly sincere, "it's what you are on the inside that matters. I just wish that both of us shared the same view. If that was the case then we might not be in this situation."

He took a cheap shot at me and it hurt, but I couldn't deny what he said. Although I didn't think that becoming a bear wouldn't affect him at all he made it sound like it wouldn't. I was running out of arguments.

_But what about me?_ I asked in desperation, _how am I going to live as a bear? Where will I sleep? What will I eat? What would I do? I mean, I couldn't even go inside the house because I'd be too big!_

Responding calmly Tobias just said, "We'll figure it out."

This was crazy! I couldn't be doing this! I shouldn't be doing this! I looked over at the clock and noticed that there were just a few minutes left. That's when I really began to get crazy.

I began pacing while I pleaded with Tobias to reconsider. But everything I said he had a counter argument for and I could never make any progress. I couldn't believe it! He was forcing me to become a nothlit! He must have gone insane! I couldn't do this! I would never survive being a bear!

But then a thought hit me. Why _WAS_ I doing this? It's wasn't like Tobias had a gun to my head or anything. I could demorph and then try and talk things out with him. Yeah, that's what I'd do! Why hadn't I thought about that earlier?

So, as quickly as I could I began to demorph. As I felt the changes begin I looked up at the clock to see how much time I had left. To my horror it read 0:01. I had less than a minute left. I couldn't demorph that fast! I had already run out of time.

To save myself from becoming a half-bear half-human monstrosity I stopped demorphing and reversed the changes yet again. Just as the last of my changes were finishing up the clock changed to 0:00.

Tobias

Without even looking back I made my way to the living room. I had been working on a little something in my spare time and it finally came time to use it. I walked over to the coffee table and picked up my battery-powered digital clock along with my watch just to be sure. Then I started to make my way to the back door without even looking back to see if Rachel was following me. I knew she would be.

Once I reached the door I yanked it open and stepped outside onto the deck. Following close behind was Rachel who stepped through the door carefully and shyly, closing it behind her.

We stood there for a moment in silence. My plan was working so far, but I was having trouble putting the next phase into action. This would be the hardest part for me.

I looked over to Rachel who was giving me a "well, what now?" look. It was then that I felt the word pop out of my mouth. "Morph,"

She looked a bit confused for a second before trying to wiggle her way out of what she probably didn't know yet.

"But Tobias," she said, trying to sound as sweet and sincere as she could, "I promised you that I would never morph again."

I have no idea why, but I was enraged by that comment. She couldn't have forgotten that fight we had when I came back from college and she was demorphing in the middle of the yard, could she? If she had forgotten that then I wasn't sure she was being sincere with me about wanting me back. That was our biggest fight and one that almost ruined our marriage right from the start! And now she didn't even remember it? What else didn't she remember, our wedding day?

"Bullcrap!" I yelled back at her, making her take a defensive step back. "I've seen you morph half-a-dozen times at least! Don't try and pull that crap on me!"

I even surprised myself at how angry that came out. I was mad, but I really wasn't THAT mad. I really had seen her morph a few other times, although half-a-dozen was stretching it. The first time really hurt me because she had broken her promise to me, but each time I saw her afterwards I felt less and less strongly about it. I mean, it would've taken a lot of willpower never to morph again if you knew that you could. And sometimes, like Rachel had said after the first time I'd seen her, it probably just sort of happened. I couldn't really blame her for that. I knew that if I were in Rachel's place I probably would've done the same thing, so whenever I saw her morphing again I kept quiet about it. I didn't want to have another argument like we had before; that one was too intense.

"Morph into what?" I heard Rachel say, snapping me out of my daydream.

"Doesn't matter," I quickly replied.

She looked more confused than she did before, but eventually she turned away from me and began walking down the deck stairs; all the while she was changing.

There were a few morphs I had expected her to choose. The first one I thought she might do was the red-tailed hawk she'd acquired for our wedding to try and get on my good side again, but after her comment that went awry I wasn't sure if she was going to take that chance again. I guess the same could've been said about her Eagle morph as well. That only left one morph. And when I saw her ears begin to climb up her head I knew what she had chosen. She was morphing into a grizzly.

But I didn't have time to watch her morph fully; I had my own stuff to take care of. I quickly strapped on the watch to my wrist as I began to play with the clock. After a few adjustments and button pushes it was ready to go. I synchronized it to my watch and pushed both of the start buttons at the same time. I wanted to get a really accurate reading.

Once I finally finished my preparations I put the clock down on the table behind me as I turned around to see a fully morphed Rachel.

We just stared at each other for a moment or two before Rachel finally got the guts to say, _So, what do you want me to do now Tobias?_

I moved out of her line of sight of the clock and sat down in a chair. "Now, we wait," I said as I positioned the clock so we could both see it change from 2:00 to 1:59.

Grizzly bears don't really have facial expressions, but I swore that I could tell when Rachel finally figured it out. _Oh, no,_ she said in horror, _Oh, no, no, no, no. Are you crazy Tobias? I can't do this!_

"This is the only way to prove that you're truly sorry," I said back calmly. "This way you'll prove that you're willing to give up everything just to be with me, just like I did with you."

_But Tobias_, she pleaded_, this is crazy! Just step back and think about this for a second._

"I have been thinking," I said back while feeling my anger towards Rachel slowly returning, "I've had more than an entire week to think about it since you decided to leave. And this is the only thing that could prove to me that you truly want me back. You did say that you would do anything."

_Yeah,_ she said weakly in defense, _but this is just crazy Tobias. I can't do it. _ And once she said those words she began to demorph.

I thought this might happen. She might have thought that I was just playing around; that I was just trying to make her feel bad for leaving me. Well, that was surely a part of it, but the main reason I was doing this was to prove to myself and to Rachel that she really wanted to get back together with me. I wasn't fooling around; I was being 100 serious. So I said what I had been hoping I didn't have to say. "If you don't want to do this for me then you can just leave."

I saw Rachel freeze instantly. It hurt me to say it just as much as it appeared to hurt her, but I needed to know. If she didn't prove to me that she wanted me back now what was going to stop her the next time someone "better" than me showed up? If she wanted to be married to me she'd have to show me.

She was frozen in the quarter-human-three-halves-bear state for a while before she silently began to remorph back into the bear. Inside I couldn't have been happier. I knew beforehand that this was going to be one of the points of greatest resistance, but Rachel hadn't left and was still willing to continue. I could never show anything on the outside since it'd ruin whatever authority I had come to have in this situation, but inside I was jumping for joy. So, on the outside I continued my standard partly angry and partly confident and dominating attitude as I leaned back in my chair and got prepared to sit for the next two hours.

A half-hour slowly turned into an hour which even slowly turned into an hour and a half. I continued to sit there either staring at the clock or staring at Rachel while there was a dead silence between us. But I knew that it wouldn't be the end of Rachel's fight to stay a human though. And when the clock hit 0:15 she began.

_Tobias_, she started, breaking the long silence between us, _I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything that's happened over the past week and everything that's lead up to it. I know that you're mad at me and you have every right to be, but I'm asking you to reconsider this whole nothlit thing. I know that you feel like this is what I did to you, but this is different. You were born a human and were just living the life of a hawk. To go back to being human was only natural to you. I know you liked being a hawk, but that wasn't who you truly were._

_But what you're trying to make me do isn't natural at all. I wasn't born a bear, so trying to make me become a bear nothlit is different. I know that you're doing this to make a point, but I can honestly say that I understand what you're trying to do. I know it doesn't seem like I gave up very much to be with you but I have. Marriage is a balancing act between what both people want and I've given as much as I could to make you happy. I know I've screwed up and I know I deserved to be punished, but this is a little extreme. Look down deep in yourself and see if this is what you truly want. Because if I do become a nothlit things will definitely change, and most of that change will be for the worst._

Well, I had to give her credit, she had put some serious thought into her little speech and it sounded pretty good. But I hadn't been just sitting there and letting my mind wonder either, I was thinking about what she might say to try and get out of her situation. But I didn't really need all that planning. When I heard her say something in particular my mind instantly knew how to counter it.

"You have no idea what I gave up for you," I said, surprising even myself at how harsh it had come out. "I gave up my entire life! Everything I enjoyed about my hawk life was gone. No more soaring, no more diving, no more riding the thermals; they were all gone. And they weren't gone until I felt like bringing them back every now and then, they were gone forever! No matter how much I try I will never get to do any of that again. And now you think that just by spending close to two hours in a morph it'll give you some insight into how I feel?"

I had to take a step back and refocus myself after that. I had never meant for it to come out like that, but it was like something inside me was begging to get out and it finally exploded. I missed being a hawk sometimes, but I had never really thought about it that harshly before. But maybe that was how I really felt deep inside, I didn't know. I had too many emotions running around in my head at the moment, so I had no idea what triggered it exactly. And I didn't have much time to think about it either since Rachel was ready with a comeback.

_But Tobias_, she said, sounding like she had been reduced to pleading, _you'll be married to a bear. A MALE bear. Just think about the consequences of what you're doing._

"It doesn't matter to me what you are on the outside," I said back without even thinking about it, "its what you are on the inside that matters. I just wish that both of us shared the same view. If that was the case then we might not be in this situation."

Ouch. That hurt me as well. I never imagined that I'd be telling Rachel stuff like this, but I knew it's what I needed to do. I wanted her to prove to me that she loved me more than anything, and I was ready to go to any length to make it happen.

_But what about me?_ she asked in desperation, _how am I going to live as a bear? Where will I sleep? What will I eat? What would I do? I mean, I couldn't even go inside the house because I'd be too big!_

Responding calmly for once, I just said, "We'll figure it out."

It was around that point that Rachel started to make less and less sense. And within the last few minutes she stopped making sense at all. I couldn't say that I didn't expect this, but when there's a real life person there in front of you it's a lot different than just playing the scenario out inside your mind. But I had one goal. I needed to see if Rachel would do for me what I did for her; forever proving to me that she loved me just as much as I loved her. I needed to keep up my act for just a little bit longer. And with Rachel running out of arguments it was becoming easier and easier to respond.

When the clock changed from 0:02 to 0:01 I knew it was over, but Rachel didn't see the time until later. Over the last minute or two it looked to me like Rachel was about to literally go insane. She had stopped pacing and just stood in once spot, staring out at the fence surrounding our back yard with an empty gaze. But eventually I saw her gather herself back up again and get her mind back together. And to my horror she started to demorph.

On the outside I had to keep up my appearance, but on the inside I was screaming at her to stop. She was so close to the time limit. She was so close to proving to me that she loved me. I was so close to forgiving her for everything she'd done. And she was about to ruin everything.

I had no idea what was going on in her head at that moment, but to my surprise something wonderful happened. Once she got to the point of being about a quarter human again she stopped morphing. I clenched the arm rests of the chair I was sitting in tightly in suspense as she just sat there in that form for what seemed like an eternity. But eventually I could see her human traits start to fade away as she reversed her morph back to completely being a bear.

I was so excited that I couldn't hold it in anymore. I clenched one of my fists together and pumped it in front of my chest while quietly whispering, "Yes! Come on Rachel! You can do it!" And just as she made it back to being 100 fully grizzly bear I heard the alarm go off on the clock signifying that it had reached 0:00.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Note: Alright, this is the final chapter! (Well, sort of.) And before you go off and read it I just want to say one thing. (Spoken in the voice of Dark Helmet from Space Balls) "FOOLED YOU!"

* * *

Tobias

I reached over and hit the alarm clock making the alarm turn off. She had done it! I didn't think she would but she did! Everything that I hoped was already true was just proven to me without a doubt. Rachel was sorry. Rachel did want me back. And, most of all, Rachel still loved me just as much as I loved her! I couldn't have been happier.

After silencing the alarm clock I quickly got up out of my chair and began to walk over to Rachel. But by the time I was at the bottom of the stairs I had graduated to a run. I tried to hold my emotions in for just a bit longer, but by the time I reached her tears were already streaming down my eyes.

I slid into her while going down on my knees and I quickly grabbed her around her grizzly neck as tight as I could. I was beyond trying to hold back my emotions now as I just cried into her soft fur. But I couldn't do that for long no matter how much I wanted to. I was running out of time.

"I love you Rachel," I managed to squeeze out somehow between my cries, "I love you so much."

Up until this point Rachel had remained pretty motionless. She just seemed to be staring off into space trying to come to terms with what just happened. But to my surprise I felt a bit of her weight shift and then felt one of her paws gently pat me a few times on the back. She then placed it firmly on my back and said almost emotionlessly, _I love you too Tobias._

It didn't matter to me how it sounded at that point because I already knew it was true. I just squeezed her tighter and continued to cry for just a moment longer.

After I forcefully gathered myself back up I gave Rachel one last squeeze and pulled myself away to look her straight in the eyes. I gave her a great big smile as I stared into her face and, almost with a chuckle, I said to her, "Thank you so much Rachel, now you can demorph."

I saw Rachel's face twist a bit when she finally figured out what I had said. I didn't expect her to figure everything out at once, so when she said, _Wh-What did you say Tobias?_ I wasn't all that surprised.

"I said that you can demorph now," I repeated, feeling an even bigger smile creep across my face.

She just stared at me for a moment before saying, _I, I can't demorph. I'm a nothlit. I stayed in morph for over two hours._

"No you're not," I said while putting my hand on her shoulder blade, "I set the clock you were watching to count a minute as only being 58 seconds long, a little thing I picked up from Ax. That means that when the clock read 0:00 you still had four minutes left. I've been keeping the real time with my watch just to make sure. And according to it you still have a little less than three minutes to demorph. That is, unless you really do want to be a grizzly bear…"

I just gave Rachel a big smile as I gazed into her empty looking eyes. Doing something like this to her had been the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life, but the reward was the greatest reward I could ever get.

But after a few moments of not moving I began to get a little worried. I mean, I had to cut it close because I wanted Rachel to truly believe she was becoming a nothlit, but that only left her a few minutes to demorph. If she didn't hurry up and begin morphing she really would become a grizzly bear nothlit. I remember saying that it didn't matter to me if she was a grizzly bear or not, but that was only sort of true. I would still love her just as much, but, well, she'd be a grizzly. A MALE grizzly. And unlike me in my hawk form she couldn't morph back to being a human for an hour or two…

But just as my smile was beginning to fade she finally made her move, although it wasn't quite what I expected. While I was looking straight down her muzzle she let out a growl. And not just any growl; this was the same growl she'd used just before she started to rip some controllers apart piece by piece. My smile quickly turned to a confused look as Rachel took a step forward and head-butted me right in the chest knocking me over onto my back. But it was when she placed a paw on either side of my body, effectively pinning me down by standing on the looseness of my own shirt, that I began to get scared. When she moved her still growling muzzle so it was only an inch or so above my own face I really began to get terrified. It wasn't unheard of for Rachel to act on an impulse, and I wasn't sure what she was going to do to me now. I had just forced her to go through something that must have been mind-numbingly hard for her to do, and now all I could do was hope that she wouldn't snap under the pressure. All the while her muzzle kept getting closer and closer to my face. And when I thought her muzzle couldn't get any closer it finally made contact with my own lips.

I struggled a bit at first because I had no idea what was going on, but as Rachel began to demorph I finally figured out what it was she was trying to do. She was giving me the most awkward kiss of my life! And to make it even more awkward she held the kiss the entire time she demorphed. I wasn't sure if I was more creeped out by kissing a bear or that I could feel her bones turn to liquid and then reform again, but it didn't really matter right then. As soon as I could reach I put my hands around her neck and pulled her deeper into the kiss. I had waited too long for a moment like this to give it up.

Once she was finally back to being a human we broke off the kiss so we both could get some air. Rachel started to pull away but I pulled her back into one of the tightest hugs I'd ever given her. I could hear her gently crying into my ear and I knew that I was probably doing the same, but it didn't matter to me right then. I had Rachel back; that was all that really mattered.

We continued to hug each other for what seemed like an eternity. But eventually Rachel pulled away just enough so that her face was only a few inches away from mine. Then, through a bit of residual tears, she said, "You have no idea how much I want to kill you right now."

I just smiled and replied, "I love you too Rachel," before I pulled her back into our hug. And as we lay there I began my own apology into her ear.

"Rachel, I'm sorry I put you through that. I shouldn't have done something that extreme, but it was the only way I could honestly make sure that you really were sorry and that you still loved me."

"Tobias," Rachel started sort of cutting me off, "don't be sorry, I deserved it for what I did. If anyone should be sorry it should be me. I'm the idiot who decided to give up my beautiful life for some douchebag."

I had to smile at that comment. It made me feel a bit better that Rachel hated the guy she'd left me for. For one thing that meant that she wasn't going to leave me for him again. But thinking about him reminded me to ask Rachel a question. It was a question that I had been dying to ask ever since I read her note.

"Rachel," I said softly into her ear, "I want to ask you something important. It's something I've been wondering ever since I read your note. Why? Why did you leave me? It couldn't have been just because the other guy was that much better than me, could it?"

I felt Rachel stop breathing for a second before she let out a big sigh. "No," she began, "it wasn't because he was "better" than you. To be honest, he reminded me of you more than anything else. Although he was different in one major way."

She took a pause that went on for too long so I interrupted her with a question, "What? How was he different?"

I could feel her take a big sigh as she pulled away from our hug to look me straight in the face. She gave a small laugh as she said, "You're going to think this is really stupid, especially because of what's happened in the past few hours, but whenever I looked at you I felt guilty. I felt guilty because I forced you to become a human."

"Rachel," I began, "You didn't…" But she cut me off before I could continue.

"Tobias," she said adamantly, "let me finish. I knew that you'd probably miss being a hawk every now and then, but I figured you'd get over it eventually and be happy with your human life. But after you started to go to college for Ornithology and especially after you started to take flying lessons I realized that you couldn't forget about being a hawk. I thought that I had made a mistake making you become a nothlit. I had no idea how strongly you really felt about it until today, but even back then I thought that you missed it at least a little bit. And the more I looked at you and the more "It doesn't bother me" answers I got from you, the worse I felt. And it got to the point where I just couldn't take it anymore. That's when I met Kyle and everything took off from there. I'm sorry Tobias, I'm so sorry. I know it's the stupidest reason in the world to do what I did, but I'm sorry. Can you ever forgive me?"

She said the last part with some new tears which really drove her point home.

"That's it?" I responded being sort of surprised it wasn't something more serious, "that's what you left me for?"

She just nodded her head while using one of her hands to wipe away a few tears. I wasn't sure how to feel exactly. On the one hand her only problem with me was something that was small and easy to fix, but on the other hand that small problem had lead to her leaving me. But as I took one look into Rachel's tear-stained eyes I knew exactly how I should feel.

I grabbed her back into our tight hug and whispered into her ear, "Of course I'll forgive you. You've proven to me how sincere you are by going through what you went through today. I know you're sorry and I know you still love me and that's all that really matters to me."

I patted Rachel's back a few times to comfort her a bit before I continued.

"And as for the missing being a hawk thing, I have to admit that I wasn't being fully sincere when you asked me. I just didn't want you to feel bad about it, but I guess my plan backfired. But what I said today was just the anger talking. Don't believe what you heard me say because I honestly don't feel that way. And that also goes for most of what I said today as well."

I took a deep breath before I continued. "The truth is that I do miss being a hawk sometimes. I mean, some of the best moments in my life happened while I was a hawk, so how could I not miss them? But Rachel, you didn't force me to do anything. I didn't just become a nothlit for you, I became a nothlit for us. I knew that our marriage wouldn't work if I wasn't a human, so I willingly gave up my power to morph for the both of us. And even though I do miss being a hawk sometimes, every time I see you I know I made the right choice. And if I had the chance to go back and do everything over again I'd still make the exact same choice in a heart beat. I might've liked being a hawk, but right now I love being a human."

I could feel Rachel squeeze me tight after that, and I just squeezed her back.

"I love you Tobias," she said through a few lingering tears.

"I love you too Rachel," I said back.

Rachel

The alarm clock started to buzz before Tobias reached over to turn it off. That was it. I was now officially a bear, no matter if I really wanted to be or not. But at least I had Tobias back, that much I was sure of. But would it be worth it? Sure, having him take me back after what I did to him was what I really wanted, but how many other things had I sacrificed that would only become apparent later? What would our life be like now? I could understand what Tobias was trying to prove, but this would be very different from when he was a hawk. I couldn't demorph for an hour or two so we could both be human once again like he could. I was a bear, and I would be until the day I died.

Tobias was the one who somewhat jarred me out of my trance. He had ended up kneeling in front of me and wrapping his hands around my neck while saying, "I love you Rachel, I love you so much."

I hadn't really had time to completely absorb everything that was going on, so I wasn't quite on top of things at this moment. But almost as an automatic response I shifted my weight to one paw while I gently wrapped my other around Tobias. I gave him a few gentle pats on the back before I said, _I love you too Tobias._

So, this would be how we showed affection for one another from now on. Tobias would grab me around my neck and I would pat him on the back. This was a whole lot better than before…

But as my mind had a bit of time to think I began to change my attitude. I guess I was still sort of mad at Tobias for making me do this, but now I at least had him back. It was going to be tough, but we'd find a way to make our relationship work. We'd been through worse before and we always made it out okay, so why should something like this stop us?

As I began to come back to reality somewhat I could feel Tobias crying into my neck. I pulled him in a bit tighter to show that I still loved him as well. But almost as soon as I did I felt him begin to pull himself away. He pulled far enough away so he could look me straight in the eyes before giving me a big smile and saying, "Thank you so much Rachel, now you can demorph."

It took a moment for those words to register. Was he really that stupid or was he just trying to rub it in? We'd seen the same clock reach 0:00, so what could he possibly mean? I had to have heard him wrong. _Wh-What did you say Tobias?_ I asked just to make sure.

"I said that you can demorph now", he said while a bigger smile crept across his face.

I still didn't know what he was getting at. He must have been even crazier than I was right now. He, of all people, should've known what happens when you stay in morph for two hours. _I, I can't demorph, _I said weakly, _I'm a nothlit. I stayed in morph for over two hours._

"No you're not," he said back while placing one of his hands on my shoulder, "I set the clock you were watching to count a minute as only being 58 seconds long, a little thing I picked up from Ax. That means that when the clock read 0:00 you still had four minutes left. I've been keeping the real time with my watch just to make sure. And according to it you still have a little less than three minutes to demorph. That is, unless you really do want to be a grizzly bear…"

I didn't catch it at first. I was so sure that I was going to become a grizzly bear that I hadn't even thought of any possible ways Tobias might've fooled me. But now, to learn that I still had time to demorph, I wasn't sure how to feel. I was beyond thrilled that I wasn't going to be stuck as a grizzly bear, but I was also mad at Tobias for putting me through all of that without actually having to become a nothlit. And let's not forget that I was still sorry for cheating on Tobias and I had just proven how much I still loved him. It was a battle of the emotions and the strongest one would win. And just from my prior experiences I knew that anger was always the strongest emotion.

While Tobias was looking straight down my muzzle and into my eyes I let out a growl. And not just any growl; this was the same growl I'd used just before I started to rip some controllers apart piece by piece. His smile quickly turned to a confused look as I took a step forward and head-butted him right in the chest so he fell backwards. He ended up landing on his back with a thud. I was just running on impulse as I took both of my paws and placed them on either side of Tobias' body, effectively pinning him down by the looseness of his own T-shirt. But when I leaned over and gave another growl straight into his face I had a moment of déjà vu. I felt like I had done this before…

And that was when my mind finally decided to take back control. I had done this before, but it wasn't to Tobias, it was to Kyle. But the moment I noticed Tobias' terrified face it struck a certain chord with me. Sure, I was mad at him for putting me through all this, but this was Tobias, not Kyle. He really cared for me. When he told me that he loved me it didn't sound empty, he meant it. He had been waiting for me to come back this whole time. And after only a few hours it already looked like he'd forgiven me. And to think I was about to leave him with some permanent scars. I couldn't believe I would even think of something like that! I should be grateful that I married someone like him. And now, all that was left to do was to show him I really was grateful.

I didn't even really think about that much, or even realize that I was still a bear really, but I moved my muzzle closer to Tobias until I could feel my lips touch his. Only afterwards would I realize how creepy that must have been for him, but right then I didn't care. I wanted to kiss him, and so I did. And all the while I began to finally demorph.

He struggled at first, probably not sure of what I was trying to do, but he figured it out eventually. And the more human I got the more into it he seemed to get. By the end he even had his arms wrapped around my neck so he could even pull me in tighter. It was then I knew that things were going to be okay. I had him, he had me, and nothing else mattered in the world.

Once I finally got back to being 100 human, something I thought that I'd never feel again only a few minutes ago, I pulled away so both of us could get some air. But I didn't get too far before Tobias pulled me into an exceptionally tight hug. I could hear him gently crying into my ear and I was probably doing the same into his, but it didn't matter to me right then. I had Tobias back; that was all that really mattered.

We continued to hug each other for what had to be at least ten minutes with our gentle cries and breaths the only noise coming out of either of us. But eventually I had to pull away just enough so that I could stare into Tobias' eyes. Then, through a bit of residual tears, I said, "You have no idea how much I want to kill you right now." He had no idea how close I had really come to possibly doing just that, and in the back of my head I still sort of had the urge to, but now I was only saying it to break the silence between us.

His response was exactly what I expected. "I love you too Rachel," he said before he pulled me back into our hug. And as we lay there Tobias began to softly say something into my ear.

"Rachel," he said with a few sobs tossed in, "I'm sorry I put you through that. I shouldn't have done something that extreme, but it was the only way I could honestly make sure that you really were sorry and that you still loved me."

Like I said before I was still a bit mad, but I had Tobias back. And if going through that was what it took to do it then I'd happily do it all over again. And besides, I was the one who screwed up. Tobias didn't need to apologize.

"Tobias," I started, "don't be sorry, I deserved it for what I did. If anyone should be sorry it should be me. I'm the idiot who decided to give up my beautiful life for some douchebag."

I had to smile at my own comment. It was sort of funny how only a few days ago I thought Kyle was the greatest person in the world and now I had just called him a douchebag (although I had called him worse before). It's funny how fast things can change sometimes.

After my comment I could feel Tobias squeeze me tighter before saying, "Rachel, I want to ask you something important. It's something I've been wondering ever since I read your note. Why? Why did you leave me? It couldn't have been just because the other guy was that much better than me, could it?"

This was it. This was the moment I had been waiting for. No more lies. No more running away from the truth. Whatever small problems we had before I left were going to get fixed now.

"No," I began, "it wasn't because he was "better" than you. To be honest, he reminded me of you more than anything else. Although he was different in one major way."

I took a pause after that. I wanted to tell him, but I was afraid of what he might think. I had been hiding my feelings from him for the past few years for exactly that reason. But I knew this had to get taken care of right now. If it didn't come out right now who knows what I might end up doing down the road. I had already given up Tobias once; I don't think he'd take me back if I did it again.

I was just about to begin again when I heard Tobias say, "What? How was he different?"

I took a big sigh as I pulled away from our hug so I could look Tobias straight in the face. I let out a small laugh to kill some of my anxiety as I said, "You're going to think this is really stupid, especially because of what's happened in the past few hours, but whenever I looked at you I felt guilty. I felt guilty because I forced you to become a human."

"Rachel," he began, trying to cut me off, "You didn't…" But I needed to finish this now. If I didn't I wasn't sure that I could get the courage to start it back up again.

"Tobias," I said adamantly, "let me finish. I knew that you'd probably miss being a hawk every now and then, but I figured you'd get over it eventually and be happy with your human life. But after you started to go to college for Ornithology and especially after you started to take flying lessons I realized that you couldn't forget about being a hawk. I thought that I had made a mistake making you become a nothlit. I had no idea how strongly you really felt about it until today, but even back then I thought that you missed it at least a little bit. And the more I looked at you and the more "It doesn't bother me" answers I got from you, the worse I felt. And it got to the point where I just couldn't take it anymore. That's when I met Kyle and everything took off from there. I'm sorry Tobias, I'm so sorry. I know it's the stupidest reason in the world to do what I did, but I'm sorry. Can you ever forgive me?"

I didn't mean to start crying again, but as I said those final pleading words I just couldn't hold it in any more.

"That's it?" Tobias said sounding surprised, "that's what you left me for?"

I slowly nodded my head while I shifted all my weight onto one hand so I could wipe away a stray tear or two. I had already thought that Tobias had forgiven my non-verbally, but I needed to hear it straight from his own mouth. That would be the only way that I could ever truly forgive myself.

He thought about it for a second before he pulled me back into our hug and said into my ear, "Of course I'll forgive you. You've proven to me how sincere you are by going through what you went through today. I know you're sorry and I know you still love me and that's all that really matters to me."

"And as for the missing being a hawk thing," he continued, "I have to admit that I wasn't being fully sincere when you asked me. I just didn't want you to feel bad about it, but I guess my plan backfired. But what I said today was just the anger talking. Don't believe what you heard me say because I honestly don't feel that way. And that also goes for most of what I said today as well."

He took a deep breath before he continued on. "The truth is that I do miss being a hawk sometimes. I mean, some of the best moments in my life happened while I was a hawk, so how could I not miss them? But Rachel, you didn't force me to do anything. I didn't just become a nothlit for you, I became a nothlit for us. I knew that our marriage wouldn't work if I wasn't a human, so I willingly gave up my power to morph for the both of us. And even though I do miss being a hawk sometimes, every time I see you I know I made the right choice. And if I had the chance to go back and do everything over again I'd still make the exact same choice in a heart beat. I might've liked being a hawk, but right now I love being a human."

I squeezed Tobias as hard as I could after hearing that. It was the most romantic thing I had ever heard him say.

"I love you Tobias," was the only thing I could think of saying back.

"I love you too Rachel," he said with a smile.


	16. Epilouge

Epilogue

Note: Well, this is truly the final chapter. I hope that you've enjoyed reading this story as much as I liked writing it and I want to that all of you that left reviews. As for my next story you can vote on which idea you like the best at the RAF forums in the fanfic section. (richardsani.conforums. com/index.cgi) (just don't forget to take out the space. I tried to link to the topic, but this website doesn't like me...) Once again thanks for reading and I hope to see you around at my next fic.

* * *

Hey, this is Rachel talking again. It must have seemed like a good place to end the story, huh? Tobias and I trapped in each other's embrace fully forgiving the other for just about everything. And you're left to assume that everyone just lives happily ever after for the rest of their days. Well, that's not quite what happened.

Now, before you start thinking of ways our relationship could become screwed up again let me just assure you that our relationship is still as strong as it ever was. It's just that not everything else fell into place like it should've for our fairy tale ending to be complete. I guess I'll start at the beginning.

After lying outside on the grass for a long time Tobias and I eventually got up and made it inside. It was then that reality sort of started to hit us both. After we both took a shower and got dressed in new clothes (which we both desperately needed) we jumped into Tobias' car and began to drive off to Kyle's house.

I had told Tobias all about my trip and what had happened in the past week or so. At first he wanted to kill Kyle just as much as I did, but calmer heads prevailed eventually. But one fact still remained; we still had to go and get all my stuff back from Kyle's house.

Everyone was supposed to get back from the trip in a few days, so he shouldn't have been there right now (or else it might get ugly). That is, unless the injuries I gave him were determined to be "serious". In that case he had probably already been flown home. But the last time I checked a few scratches didn't qualify as "serious" and we had to get all sorts of vaccines before we left anyway. He'd be in some minor pain for a few days, but he'd certainly survive.

Anyway, after a few hours of driving we finally got to Kyle's house and realized his car wasn't in the driveway. So we went up to the door and tried to open it, but it was obviously locked. Tobias and I looked at each other for a moment before he gave me a nod. I knew exactly what that nod meant. I began to morph.

All it took was one decent ram from the grizzly bear and the door splintered into dozens of fragments. The hole I made wasn't quite big enough for me to fit through comfortably, but Tobias was able to squeeze through and open the door as I demorphed.

Once we had the door out of the way it was just a simple task of taking all my stuff, still piled in the living room, and moving it into both of our cars. We were lucky we had both cars otherwise I don't think everything would've fit again. Once we had everything packed I went inside the house for one final time. I had something planned.

I gave a look to Tobias who had followed me in and asked, "May I?"

He gave me a confused look and said, "May you what?"

I was pretty sure he knew what I was talking about, so I just said, "You know," as I started to morph.

If he didn't know what I was asking before he certainly knew after I started morphing. He didn't really seem too happy about it, but then again he didn't say anything to stop me. And once I was fully grizzly again all hell broke loose.

I smashed anything I could get my hands on (and I even hurt myself a bit when I tried to tear a hole through the refrigerator). Couches, TVs, tables, beds, chairs: anything that could be broken was. And I was having a great time doing it too. Don't listen to what they tell you; revenge is almost always sweet. Even Tobias, who just stood aside most of the time, got into it a bit at the end. By the time we'd finished it looked like a tornado, or a grizzly bear, had just made a run through his house. I demorphed with some adrenaline still pumping as I quickly said to Tobias, "Let's get out of here before the cops get here." He quickly agreed as we raced for our cars and then drove home as fast as we could.

Over the next few days everything began to slowly get back to normal. Tobias started going back to his classes and his pilot training while I, well, kept myself occupied. After what I'd just been through I needed some time to reflect on myself and figure out who I really was and all that junk. So I was in one of those moods for the next few days.

But I knew that everything wasn't going to be over just yet. And after a few days of being home we received a knock on the door. It was the police.

I knew what was coming so when I answered the door I didn't struggle at all as they put me in handcuffs. Tobias walked me out to the waiting police car and gave me a final kiss before they tossed me in.

I was able to make bail so I was home the next day, but the media were having so much fun with the story it really didn't matter anyway. I just kept quiet and let my lawyer handle everything until the trial. They could only try me for what I did to Kyle's house in the United States, but I learned soon after I was arrested that there were charges pending in Brazil as well for my "assault" of Kyle. My lawyer handled everything she could and made a deal with Brazilian authorities so that I would be able to show up in Brazil only once my trial was over here. And when I showed up could I turn myself in and let the proceedings carry on in Brazil. But first, I had my American case to deal with.

The court date finally rolled around and I wasn't sure what to expect exactly. The media was still buzzing around me constantly, but if Kyle decided to tell them all what we'd done together I'd never hear the end of it. I had threatened him to keep quiet about it, but for the most part it was an empty threat. I was in enough trouble already; I didn't need to get in any more.

But to my surprise Kyle kept quiet about almost everything up to and including our argument in Brazil. His lawyer said that he did not want to comment on the topic of the argument since it was a personal matter, so it was left at just being "a severe argument".

I pleaded guilty to all the charges (trespassing, breaking an entering, vandalism, etc.) because it was the smart thing to do. Luckily I had enough money to hire a good lawyer while Kyle just got one out of the phonebook. Also, when someone saves the whole world they're usually forgiven for a few minor crimes here and there. Needless to say the trial didn't turn out like Kyle was hoping. I ended up paying him the value of what I broke (a few thousand dollars) and not much more. That amount probably wasn't even enough to cover his lawyer's fees. But I was still incredibly mad at him and he was just trying to get some money out of me, so I figured he got what he deserved. But this was only a warm up trial. My more serious trial was to be held in Brazil.

After the verdict was given at my US trial I had only one day to show up in Brazil for my next one. Since Tobias and I didn't have much time to say goodbye he took the trip with me even though I didn't really want him to. Still, it was nice to sit next to someone like him for the entire plane ride. Once we landed in Rio I gave Tobias one last kiss and went to turn myself in to the nearest police station among a flurry of reporters and cameras.

Luckily the lawyers in the case already had some time to prepare so the trial happened sooner than I expected. I guess it didn't hurt that I was a worldwide celebrity either…

Once again I had managed to get myself a really good and expensive lawyer while Kyle looked like he got some bum off the street. But nevertheless I wasn't able to get quite the victory I was looking for. I ended up having to pay Kyle an additional 50,000 American dollars and the worst part was that I would be imprisoned for thirty days. Needless to say the media absolutely loved it, and I absolutely hated it. But Brazil had just implemented new and much tougher laws against people that morph and commit a crime, so there was no way to really get out of it. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time I guess. But still, I think it was worth what I made Kyle go through. The press was having a field day with him as well and they'd turned up a bunch of his former girlfriends in the process…

Anyway, off I went to jail. It wasn't that bad really. Since I was a celebrity I basically got a bad motel room to live in for about fifteen days before I was released for good behavior. And the other prisoners weren't bad either. I think I was a role model for most of them since I was the tough chick that helped save the world. A lot of them were pretty cool and I think I actually made some new friends.

So, after the whole ordeal Tobias and I took a flight home and tried to lay low for the next few weeks. The media had suspected that Kyle and I were in a relationship since our argument had remained "personal" even in the Brazilian court, but they had no solid evidence. Even Dave and Mike had kept quiet about what they knew as well and that went for almost everyone else in the rock climbing group. When I got back home I was sure to send them all a nice little gift of a couple of thousand dollars each. The media suspected I had an affair with Kyle, but without solid evidence they could never be sure. Still, the media stayed on me for weeks after I had gotten back.

But after those weeks were over people started to lose interest and Tobias and I slowly began to get back to our normal lives. Tobias finally got his masters in Ornithology and as for me I eventually took up rock climbing again, just with a different group of people. And to this day I still love Tobias just as much as I ever have and I'm confident that he loves me that much as well. I've made some mistakes, but I'm just lucky that I got a second chance.


End file.
